A look back at some of our biggest and best stories from this week. In case you missed them, here's a recap:

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This is the secret sauce of HUL's success, says The CEO Factory's author Sudhir Sitapati

HUL brands which include Lifebuoy, Dove, Clinic Plus, Ponds, Lakmé, Closeup, Surf Excel, Vim, Brooke Bond, Bru, Kwality Wall’s, Kissan and, as of 2020, Horlicks, are used by 2 billion people every day, as mentioned by the company on its website. Sudhir Sitapati, ED-Food & Refreshment, HUL and the author of The CEO Factory, in an interview with CNBC-TV18, talked about the things that have led to HUL's success over the years which include middle-class soul, meritocratic culture and integrity.

Outlook 2020: 10 things that are likely to shape the markets this year

The year 2019 has ended and it has ended well. After an indifferent first half, the second half gave much hope to the bulls. The corporate tax cut was a game-changer and it officially ended the bear eclipse over the markets. However, investors have complained — it is a genuine concern —that their portfolios didn’t keep pace with the uptick in the market. Will that change in 2020? We bring you some vital factors that are likely to be in play.

The decade of the other: How social media is fuelling the ‘us’ versus ‘them’ debate

The explosion of social platforms in the last decade has seen unbridled enthusiasm for people from all walks of life, all corners of the globe, to connect based on interests, opinions, passions, and causes. And instead of being platforms that allowed for more interchange, exchange, and conversations – as was the promise – it ended up being platforms that created echo chambers and filter bubbles. And, the outcome of this is that anyone outside the filter bubble is the ‘other’— to be demonised, degraded, labelled, and termed ‘traitor’, writes Harini Calamur.

Indian tourism remains in the doldrums: Will inflow pick up in 2020?

India's tourism industry has been hit severely by the violent protests against the Citizenship Act, with at least seven nations including the US, UK and Canada issuing travel warnings. This has only worsened the woes of the industry, which has witnessed a sharp decline in the tourist inflow at a time when the economy is hit by a massive slowdown.

The Product-Market Fit Code: Why many companies fail to crack and what startups need to learn

While creating a product requires a great deal of resources and bandwidth, most companies especially start-ups get fixated to them beyond required and tend to move a little away from what actually the market needs. In some cases, the companies have gone to the extent that they have introduced products which actually made no sense with the current market dynamics, writes Nilesh Maurya.

Not a drop to drink: This four-point plan will help fix India’s deepening water crisis

The growth of Asia’s third-largest economy, harbouring ambitions to become a $5 trillion economy in the next five years, will be severely hampered by the hovering threat of serious water shortage. In fact, in a recent global report, India ranks 13 among the 17 worst-affected countries in the world. Enough warning bells have been rung to motivate India to strongly push for long-lasting, radical solutions.

Know Your Country: Decoding issues that challenge the federal structure of India

The primary learning is that after 72 years of becoming a political union, India is perhaps still merely the one. We have made little progress in becoming a social and economic union. This state of affairs is clearly reflected in diverse socio-economic conditions of different states and in many cases various regions within a state. This is perhaps the reason why programmes, policies, and strategies which are formulated purely from a national viewpoint fail to achieve the desired results, writes Vijay Kumar Gaba.

IndiGo now has 250 planes. What does that mean for its operations?

IndiGo’s growth has been nothing short of spectacular in recent years. The airline took 113 months to reach 100 aircraft and another 46 months to add 150 additional aircraft, increasing the fleet to 250 aircraft in 160 months of operations. The domestic aviation market in the country has also changed leaps and bounds, with 82 percent of all passengers in the country flying a low-cost carrier in November 2019.