Driving down the winding and uneven road in Said-ul-ajab, one of Delhi’s many urban villages, one realises that the rapid commercialisation of the capital has left it with fewer nooks and crannies to explore. Leisure today seems to be all about hanging out at a mall, and “progress” seems to be behind glass facades.

The Garden of Five Senses was set up by Delhi Tourism in 2003 . Though conceived as “a celebration of aesthetic expression and appreciation”, with its many varieties of flora and fauna spread over 20 acres, it is fast becoming a hub for a number of restaurants that have come up in the area. Initially home only to Magique, the Marut Sikka-promoted fusion restaurant, The Garden now boasts four outlets with the fifth one due to open in the next few months.

The Garden has transformed very gradually from first being a large park, then a commercial centre for designer wear to now finally a cluster of restaurants. Sikka says that his interest was piqued when he first visited The Garden almost three years ago. From seeing the space, to wanting to open a high-on-ambience restaurant there, was a short journey. He says, “My perception five years ago was that people went out just to eat. I then realised that people also wanted a certain ambience, a place where they can relax and converse. And they were willing to pay for such an experience.”

Sikka decided to set up Magique at the same time when fashion designers were also setting up their retail outlets. Though it took Magique almost three months after its launch to be noticed, the designers weren’t so lucky, and one by one they all shut shop. Since then, there has been no looking back for Magique and when Delhi’s weather is kind (in winter, the restaurant is open for lunch and dinner, and during summer its open for dinner) it has become a favourite with those looking for more than just another meal at another restaurant.

Magique’s success didn’t go unnoticed. Atul Kapur, partner in WG Hospitality which owns Spice by Q’BA in The Garden says that they decided to open their outlet because of the unique location. Says Kapur, “It’s very open, quiet, away from the bustle of the city.” Could he have considered opening Spice in a mall instead? “Malls have a limited appeal. With outdoor space, the look and feel of a restaurant is very different, you can’t experience this indoors.” Kapur may have a point. With almost 90 covers, Spice regulars prefer to sit outside, according to the manager there. Says Kapur, “Our clients are now willing to dine al fresco.”

It may not be often that we see so many restaurants clustered in a public garden, but food outlets inside parks have existed in the capital for several years. Central Park in Connaught Place had a high profile restaurant called The Rambler. Park Baluchi in the Deer Park in Safdarjung Enclave has existed for well over a decade and half. Nehru Park in Chankaya Puri experimented with a Japanese restaurant almost 10 years ago, which has since closed down, and more recently Lodi Garden has The Lodi Restaurant catering to a select clientele.

New Delhi-based architect Arun Rewal, who also teaches in Delhi’s School of Planning and Architecture feels that, “such public access and usage is good as long as it doesn’t ruin the environment.” He adds, “These parks will get visited more because of the restaurants.” Large parks in Delhi, indeed in most Indian cities, tend to have a chequered character. They are often a haven for amorous couples and sometimes anti-social elements. Adding upmarket restaurants is then a smart way to get the right demographic in. Rewal however disagrees and says, “The restaurants shouldn’t overrun the garden. Having so many restaurants can make it a destination but they shouldn’t become a deterrent for people from the lower strata to access it.”

All the outlets in The Garden are cashing in on the ambience that comes for free. Fashion model Sapna Kumar and former model Michelle Innes too are trying to capture that feel with their recently opened bar called The Zoo. Says Kumar, “There isn’t a place like The Zoo where you just go and get a drink and hang out.” The Zoo which has come up in the space that was once fashion designer Manish Arora’s store is big on style and short on the menu. Says Kumar, “We will only do snacks and our menu will change every two months.”

So far, the promoters of all the outlets — Magique, FIO, The Zoo, Spice — have kept their cuisines different from each other. Says Sikka, “I had a Thai curry on my menu but I removed it the day Spice opened.” Kapur says that their second outlet in The Garden will be based on Bukhara. The Zoo as Kumar states will have no truck with food except in the form of snacks. And FIO serves a balance of Italian and Indian food. Says Sikka, “Right now each one of us is offering something different. Complementary concepts need to be the norm.”

Whether this concept endures will depend on, apart from the quality of the dinning experience, the infrastructure that The Garden will offer its patrons. And that, when the government is involved, isn’t always smooth. For the moment, though, it seems al fresco dining will be a lasting flavour.

Presenting the budget estimates for 2010-2011 at a special meeting of the MCD Standing Committee, municipal commissioner KS Mehra said expenditure of the Rs 6,346.70 crore envisaged will be mainly on sanitation and cleanliness, engineering works, health and education sectors.

The civic agency will focus on Commonwealth Games 2010 related infrastructure and parking projects in the coming year, for which an additional Rs 1,005 crore has been allocated.

He said the civic body is proposing to introduce a “professional tax” for those professionals living in Delhi and having an income of more than Rs 30,000 per month.

“MCD can levy such a tax under the discretionary tax system. It will be applicable to all people who are in a profession, trade or employment,” he said, adding the tax rates may vary from Rs 100 to Rs 200 a month.

Mr Mehra also proposed a five per cent increase in property tax in all categories and imposition of 20 per cent commercial tax on rented non-residential properties and high-end non-residential properties like high-class hotels, malls, air-conditioned gymnasiums and clubs having swimming pools.

Mr Mehra said all these tax proposals will help the MCD earn an additional revenue of Rs 500 crore a year which will help in providing better services to the people.

Elaborating on the expenditures proposed in 2010-11, the commissioner said Rs 989.55 crore will be spent on engineering and development works. The engineering department expenditure was Rs 1071.64 crore in 2009-10.

The allocation for environment management has been increased from Rs 835.22 crore to Rs 844.26 crore, while that for primary education has reached Rs 1441.76 crore from Rs 1231.20 crore and for health Rs 847,crore from Rs 758.11 crore.

For horticulture, another key area in which MCD will carry our works related to Commonwealth Games, the allocation has been raised to Rs 206.89 crore to Rs 203.92 crore.

Promising that works related to Commonwealth Games will be completed in time, Mr Mehra said the parking complex near JLN Stadium will be over by March 2010 while upgradation and streetscaping of 20 roads will be completed by June next year.

Delhi and the NCR are helped by massive infrastructure build-up in the run-up to the forthcoming Commonwealth Games to become top-ranked realty market in the country on as many over 60 parameters, according to a FICCI-Ernst&Young report on the sector.

“The key factors that have helped Delhi become the No 1 position are the fast-paced improvements in the physical infrastructure of the city such as the metro network
, modernisation of the international airport, road widening projects and dedicated efforts to make the Ring Road, the central artery of the city, signal-free,” it said.

Mumbai was pushed to the second slot primarily because of lower infrastructure index, the report released today added.

The report also noted that the realty sector as whole is on a strong recovery path, on the back of improved demand in the residential segment, driven by price corrections, softening of interest rates and improved liquidity.

“After a rough phase that lasted for over a year, the real estate industry in the country is on the path of recovery. The residential real estate segment, which is leading the recovery, has witnessed a revival in demand, primarily due to improved affordability”.

The commercial sector on the other hand is yet to see visible improvement in demand.

Employment opportunities in the private sector increased by close to 30 percent in the second rung cities, while in top metros, they improved by about six percent in the first seven months of the current fiscal, the study by Assocham found.

However, the job creation in Delhi NCR showed a decline of 23.42 percent and in Mumbai by 3.28 percent this fiscal compared to last financial year. But bulk of the employment among the metros got generated in the two cities, with Delhi claiming 34 percent and Mumbai over 13 percent share between April-October this fiscal.

For smaller cities, the job market worsened signaling “the benefits of the stimulus packages have yet to percolate down,” the chamber said. Assocham President Swati Piramal expressed concern over the lack of opportunities in the small cities stating “migration of youth towards bigger towns would continue.” The sectors which did well included banking and financial services and education.

Employment generation in the IT and IT enabled services sector, which cornered about 30 percent share in total white collar job creation, fell by 7.84 percent during the period. However, the education sector recorded a robust rise of 31.54 percent in the jobs tracked by the chamber.

In all, the study found 3,21,294 job offers on different portals between April-October 2009 against 3,00,000 in the same period last year.

The human mannequins were hired by the apparel brand to showcase its new collection in a disruptive way that would dovetail with the brand’s “I Hate Ugly” ad campaign on mass media.

“It was (a) great idea for visual merchandising. All these smartly dressed models just froze in the middle of whatever they were doing at the mall. Whether it was drinking coffee, applying make-up, talking on the phone or walking. So shoppers were a little startled at first, but figured things out when they saw the Allen Solly tags,” said Vinod Vijaykumar, general manager (south and west) of Tequila, part of TBWA Group.

The flash mob strategy allowed the brand to showcase 100 different garment pieces at the same time, he added. “Something you can’t even do at a fashion show.”

A flash mob typically refers to a group of people who suddenly assemble in a public place, perform an unusual action for a brief period and then disperse quickly. Brands use flash mobs to reach consumers when they least expect it. Not only is it a cost-effective tool for brands looking to reach small but focused target groups but it can also be tactically deployed across locations to generate tremendous word of mouth publicity.

No surprise, then, that several brands such as Colors, Shoppers Stop, 7Up and Channel [V] have already used it.

Take Reliance BIG Pictures, for instance, which used flash mobs to promote its film Do Knot Disturb in New Delhi early this month. The brand hired dancers, all dressed like regular shoppers, to walk into malls and perform live to the music of the film. “The response was phenomenal, we would have touched close to 20,000 consumers across a span of three days,” said Sweta Agnihotri, COO of BIG Music, which spent close to Rs2.5 lakh on the activity. The company also had a group perform small, live trailers for the movie across Mumbai. “We received close to three times our investment in media coverage,”said Girish Shah, head of branding at the Reliance-Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group and chief marketing officer of the group’s filmed entertainment business, explaining that the videos of the campaign, uploaded on Rediff.com, got at least 40,000 hits.

Similarly, Channel [V] hired a group of young dancers to take off their shirts in the middle of a mall (they were wearing branded T-shirts underneath) and start dancing. The idea was to communicate “Channel [V] is changing”, said VJ Manish Anand.

While some people were impressed, entertained and some others completely flabbergasted that someone would pull a stunt such as that in the middle of the day, it served the basic purpose: It pulled in the crowds. The challenge then, is to deliver the message in a manner that is engaging and entertaining enough for them to tell their friends, experts say.

“It is a potent weapon when the proposition is leveraged properly. It (the flash mob and activity) should have an element of surprise,” said Praveen Vadhera, country head for 141 Wall Street, the out-of-home service division of Bates Group Ltd, citing the example of Kurkure, the Pepsi Foods Pvt. Ltd snack which used street plays to communicate its new range of spicy munchies by hiring actors who would burst into flames in the middle of a crowded street.

Colors, the Hindi general entertainment channel from Viacom18 Media Pvt. Ltd, had flash mobs in 20 cities in India to promote the third season of reality show Bigg Boss. “We had groups of people wearing the Bigg Boss eye masks get onto trains and walk through stations… at one point, it was quite funny to see women commuters getting off at a station wearing these masks, advertising our show for free!” said Rameet Singh Arora, head of marketing at Colors.

However, flash mobs can be a little difficult to execute as such large gatherings are illegal in public spaces, say experts.

In 2003, following a flash mob in the city, the Mumbai police invoked section 37(1) of the Bombay Police Act to regulate any gathering or crowd in a public place without prior permission. Under the law, an assembly of five or more people construes a crowd.

“In a mall (it) is different, but the minute it is on a road or (in) a public area, they would need permission to gather, which kind of defeats the purpose of a flash mob,” said Javed Ahmad, additional director general of police, Maharashtra.

Cities such as Ahmedabad, Bangalore and New Delhi have also enacted similar bans within the city limits, according to media reports. Brands, therefore, tend to gravitate towards malls for such campaigns.

More recently, 7Up organized a flash mob in Andhra Pradesh to promote its talent hunt with actor Allu Arjun. Thirty dancers walked into Hyderabad’s Central Mall and performed a song from Arjun’s latest film. It took a few minutes for the crowd to realize that one of the dancers in the group was Arjun.

Experts maintain that advertisers are increasingly looking at such strategies to reach consumers. “Earlier, the percentage used to be dismal. Advertisers would spend up to 90% on ATL (above the line) advertising and 10% on BTL (below the line). Recently, there has been a skew toward BTL, with advertisers now looking to spend up to 25% of their ad budget on BTL,” said 141 Wall Street’s Vadhera, adding that the economic slowdown had forced advertisers to look at newer, more cost-effective ways of reaching target consumers.

According to industry estimates, hiring a troupe of six actors would cost a brand approximately Rs15,000 per day.

Ever since they were introduced in India in 2004, marathons have become something of an annual event on the social calendar, not least because they provide a huge networking opportunity for anyone who is reasonably fit – from common or garden executives to page three and corporate celebs.

For Bharti Airtel, India’s largest telecom company by subscriber numbers, the 21.09 km Delhi half-marathon on Sunday provides a unique opportunity to build the brand in its largest and oldest market, Delhi.

That’s because the Delhi half-marathon, for which Airtel has the title sponsorship for the second year running taking over from its competitor Vodafone (formerly Hutch), provides its brand focused exposure to hundreds of thousands of people from around the world, for several reasons.

First, with total prize money of $210,000 – men and women standing first will win $25,000 each – this is one of the richest half-marathons in the world.

Second, because it has received the International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) Gold Label Award, the highest rating the international organisation offers to road races, the Delhi half-marathon attracts runners from around the world. (IAAF’s ratings take into account various parameters such as participation rates, racing standards, TV coverage and organisation standards.) Consider the numbers: Sunday’s run, organised by sports management company Procam International, will see over 30,000 people running, up from about 26,000 last year – and that doesn’t reflect the number of people who still want to register. The event draws participation from 30 nationalities, not to speak of the lakhs of people who come to see and be seen.

For Airtel, these numbers are only part of the attraction. As important is the opportunity for brand positioning that the event provides. “All marathons, whether in Mumbai, New York, Boston or Delhi, have three basic characteristics. One is breaking barriers by testing your endurance with all its connotations of fitness and good health; the second is the coming together of people from different walks of life and nationalities; and the third is showcasing the characteristics of the city and its vibrant youth culture,” says Chandrasekar Radhakrishnan, senior vice president-marketing, Bharti Airtel. All of these, he explains, offer a “perfect fit” with Airtel’s tag line “Barriers break when people talk”.

The overall essence of the sponsorship, Radhakrishnan adds, is to suggest that “together, good things happen”. Like marathons elsewhere, these “good things” are not just limited to values of health, endurance, togetherness and so on. The half-marathon also provides a unique opportunity to raise funds for charity with participants raising contributions, including by the Bharti Foundation. Since 2005, over 200 NGOs have registered for the event.

The event also provides an opportunity for some internal brand-building with HR initiatives such as a “super loser” contest that offers a prize to whoever loses the most weight ahead of the contest and a medal of honour for whoever runs the fastest.

Last year’s event revealed that the brand return on investment were huge when measured on a range of parameters such as recall, intention to purchase and so on, though Radhakrishnan declines to share specifics. “We saw a clear shift in brand awareness not just in Delhi but across the country after the event,” he says.

Accordingly, this year’s event is being packaged and marketed in an even bigger way. Apart from the print and outdoor campaigns, Airtel has roped in its brand ambassador Shah Rukh Khan to market the event via a TV commercial produced by Rediffusion Y&R in which he reminisces about growing up in the city. The idea is to showcase the culture of Delhi, in which Bharti Airtel has been present since 1995.

Earlier this year, Bharti crossed the 5 million subscriber mark in the city and NCR region, but it is operating in a crowded market that is expected to see more competitors soon with aggressive pricing strategies. Already, one more player – MTS – has launched services and four more are expected by next year. In such a market, it will require a marathon effort to ensure brand loyalty.

While there has been a revival in home sales recently at the lower end of the market, residential prices are still 25-30% down from their peak, while commercial and retail are down 40-45%, said Rajiv Talwar, group executive director, DLF. Demand for commercial and retail space is still low, he added.

Revenue fell 51.66% to Rs1,810 crore from Rs3,744.39 crore. A Mint poll of five analysts had projected an average profit estimate of Rs442.98 crore on sales of Rs1,727.62 crore. DLF’s net profit is up 11% from the preceding quarter’s Rs396 crore and revenue is up by 4% from Rs1,746 crore.

“Almost Rs900 crore of their revenue would have come from sales of phase two of their Capital Greens project on Shivaji Marg (in Delhi),” said an analyst with a domestic brokerage firm, who did not want to be named. “DLF Assets did not contribute to the company’s revenue which has reduced their revenue and profit substantially on a year-on year basis.”

DLF did not realize any revenue from DLF Assets Ltd (DAL), which is majority-owned and controlled by the family of chairman K.P. Singh. DAL, established to buy and hold completed commercial assets of the developer, typically contributed around 40% of the company’s revenue until the December quarter of 2008.

Shares of the firm, which declared its results after market hours, closed 6.81% down at Rs375.60 on the Bombay Stock Exchange. The current price reflects a drop of 23.47% from the 52-week high of Rs490.80 reached on 21 October. The bourse’s benchmark equity index, the Sensex, closed 1.42% down.

“The second quarter of the fiscal carried forward the momentum set during the first quarter,” said Rajiv Singh, vice-chairman, DLF. “As the demand has recovered, sales in homes have picked up considerably. Keeping in line with this pick up in demand, we will continue to launch a mix of attractive products across locations and generate buyer interest by providing excellent location and superior product specifications at the best price.”

The Indian real estate market which crashed in September last year amid of high prices and falling demand has started recovering. Demand has come back into the market as developers such as DLF’s rivals such as Unitech Ltd launching homes in the Rs15-30 lakh range and lowered prices of existing projects.

DLF will continue to focus on de-leveraging, the company said in an emailed statement. The firm realized around Rs550 crore through the sale of non-core assets and land parcels during the second quarter and total realization in the current fiscal from such sales is Rs1,064 crore. DLF will continue to sell such assets, the company said in the statement.

DLF got booking for 2.74 million sq. ft of homes during the quarter including 0.35 million sq. ft of luxury homes (DLF Magnolias) in Gurgaon. There are signs of revival in the luxury housing segment, the statement said.

The company said it was buying out Laing O’Rourke’s stake in their joint venture, for better integration.