8 Forbes India must-reads for the weekend

The weekend is here and it's time to settle down and catch up on all the reading you've been putting off through the week. We've put together our best reads from the week, to make things easier to you. 

1) Universal Sportsbiz: It's all in the game
Anjana Reddy may have had to give up on her ambition of being a sportsperson, but she never really gave up on sports. When the time came, she launched Collectabillia, an etailing platform to sell sports memorabilia and autographed merchandise in India. She counts cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar as an investor and, in this story, describes her 1.5-year chase to get his time. Once she had that, Reddy says, getting him on board was not difficult because he believed in the concept. She quickly launched Wrogn with Virat Kohli as the brand ambassador, and Imara with Shraddha Kapoor as its face. Click here to read more about Collectabillia .

2) Our biggest success has been Skybags: Dilip Piramal
Dilip Piramal, the founder of VIP Industries, was recently appointed as the managing director after his daughter decided to move to the UK to handle the company's operations there. In conversation with Forbes India, Piramal talks about Skybags, its rival Samsonite, changing the brand's strategy and image for the future, the impact of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), India's economic health, and much more. Click here to read the interview.

3) Deepak Fertilisers: On fertile ground
Sailesh Mehta, chairman of Deepak Fertilizers, has emerged stronger from every crisis in his way. He walked away from a very public acquisition deal recently, and is now busy with a corporate rejig at his company to protect his margins on the production of NPK fertiliser and TAN fertiliser despite uncertainty with regard to raw material costs or competition from imports. Click here to read all about Deepak Fertilisers' restructure plans. Click here to read more

4) Government is in the thick of action solving immediate problems: Sanjeev Sanyal
Principal Economic Advisor in the Ministry of Finance Sanjeev Sanyal recently spoke at the Motilal Oswal Investor Conference. He spoke about job creation, agriculture, PSU bank consolidation, and construction and housing. Click here to read more   
 
5) Our India data centre should come up this year: Google's Mohit Pande
Our Technology Editor Harichandran Arakali catches up with Mohit Pande, India head for Google Cloud to understand Google's varied cloud platforms, including the G Suite, Google Cloud Platform, Google Maps, and Devices. He also talks to Forbes India about Google's projects in the open community. He dicusses Google's advancement into machine learning and artificial intelligence and its plans to set up a data centre in the country this year. Click here to read more.

6) How Ford is trying to get the 'new car smell' right
Ford may be the only carmaker in the world to have an odour factory - not one, but several scattered across different geographies. The rationale? People in different countries or continents perceive and receive fragrances differently. It now has a team of 18 engineers it calls 'super smellers' who carry out over 200 tests every year on every material that may make it to the inside of a car. And all this, just to get the new-car smell right. Click here to read more about Ford's odour factory and to find out more about it from the super smellers' mouth.

7) India has the scope to go straight to the cloud: Microsoft India president
Microsoft India President Anant Maheshwari talks about India's journey to the cloud and how enterprise operations are moving to the cloud. He discusses Microsoft's approach to the Indian cloud market and how the adoption of the cloud can help change various industries in the country. Click here to read more

8) Local players challenge global giants as India takes to the cloud
CtrlS was an early starter in the cloud ecosystem, offering a security measure to data heavy enterprises like disaster recovery in the times of crisis. Sridhar Pinnapureddy of CtrlS talks to Special Correspondent Varsha Meghani and Principal Correspondent Sayan Chakraborty, of a time-the 2000s-when people were skeptical of the work 'cloud'. He tells them how he suggested a tweak of just one work and changed the game for the company. In one quarter, they had sold their product to 40 clients. Click here to read more