2009: A Year Of Great Hopes And Expectations

It’s January,2009 and the New Year has arrived. Most people on this planet would have never experienced an year like 2008. Whether it was the employee, the businessman, the student or even the housewife the last half of 2008 had an impact on everyone. But let’s not discuss the bad things of 2008, most people were happy to see the end of it.

2009, the last year of the first decade of the 21st Century(considering 2000 as the first year) has on it’s shoulders a huge burden of setting things right and establishing a new world order. 2009 is a very important year for the entire world and the focus shall be on restoring the Economy and establishing world peace. Barrack Obama steps into the Oval Office a few weeks from today and the whole world has their eyes on him. The theme of 2009 is therefore a more peaceful and more united world with a balanced economy.

Here’s Wishing all the readers of DelhiPlanet a Very Peaceful And Prosperous

When Delhi Rocked To The Sound Of Metal

A DelhiPlanet Exclusive

Thirteen years ago, a festival called The Great Indian Rock began with bands from across the country competing at Delhi’s open-air theater Hamsadhwani at Pragati Maidan. This season too the show is back albeit with a new name called The Fuel Great Indian Rock. The competition has now transformed to a national concert tour, spanning seven cities — Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad and Shillong— with 21 Indian bands and three international acts. “The festival has always aimed at providing local bands a platform to write and perform good, original music. It is not a competition anymore, it is purely bands in concert” says Amit Saigal, founder of the festival (Source).

Yesterday was the first day of this festival in Delhi and it surely rocked to the sounds of bands like Cyanide, Kryptos and the Norwegian band Sahg. India is said to be the next big thing on the global rock music map with international bands culling heavily from this country. “Indian rock musicians are innovating. Bands in this country are incorporating elements from Indian classical and religious music into hard rock and heavy metal. They sound very good. Asia is where all the action will take place in the future. I just heard Pentagram, a Mumbai-based band, yesterday and I liked their music,” says Mattias Seklunth, guitarist and vocalist of the 16-year-old Swedish rock band Freak Kitchen.

The Great Indian Rock Festival over the years has featured some of the biggest names in home-grown rock like Parikrama, Orange Street and Indian Ocean. It has been a platform for Indian bands to showcase their skills and talent - with several crediting the festival for their journey to the global stage(Source).

If missed out any of the action of this show then you’ve landed at the right spot, checkout some of the action below:

Hot Wheels Come To Town At The Auto Expo 2008

The 10th Auto Expo 2008

Begins: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 at 3:00 PM

Ends: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 at 7:00 PM

Location:

Pragati Maidan

New Delhi, Delhi(NCR)

India

Link: The AutoExpo Official Site

Delhi Planet Exclusive Coverage Of The Auto Expo 2008

Women And Cars, together at one place continuously for 7 days right here in Delhi. You surely don’t want to miss it, so make sure to catch all the action at the 9^th Auto Expo, 2008.

Well, it wasn’t really put up like this but it would have surely been a different way to attract the crowds to India’s largest Auto Exhibition fair. This year promised to be much bigger and better than it’s previous editions and so far it has surely proved to be a big hit. So while the major draw at the 8^th Auto Expo in 2006 was the ultra luxurious Rs 5 Crore( In excess of $1mn) Mercedes Maybach, this time it was the ulta compact Rs 1 Lakh($2500 ) Tata Nano. The Nano has been the talking point ever since it was launched on 10^th January not only in India but all over the world. This year’s show attracted unprecedented interest from foreign media houses which was evident from the large number of international journalists who were present at the event on 10^th.

The Tata Nano (see above) has been termed as a “miracle” and no matter what the critics might say the fact is that it is surely a great achievement and could have been achieved only in a country like India. The Car has the power to empower the citizens of the country and is targetted at the common middle class families which form a large portion of the Indian urban population. There is already talk of replacing the 3 wheeled auto rickshaws with the Nano as the rickshaw suprisingly costs much more. If Tata can launch CNG variants of the Tata Nano, it would certainly become a very common mode of public transport. The Nano has proved that India will very soon become a top manufacturer of cars and a hot market for small sized cars.

Some of the major auto manufacturers who displayed their cars this time included Maruti Suzuki( Splash, A-Star and Kizashi being the must watch models ), BMW, Tata, Volkswagen, Mercedes Benz, Honda( The FCX Concept and Jazz Concept being the major attractions), Skoda, Mitsubishi, Mahindra-Renault and Fiat(which boasts of the best model in the show, catch her next to the Linea ). Cars addressing the concern of climate change and global warming were a rare sight this time with only Honda planning to launch a hybrid variant of the Civic. It is however expected that future shows would showcase quite a few eco-friendly cars that people would actually be able to purchase. After the 1 lakh car the next target should be to develop a cost-effective clean fuel car.

While the Tata Nano grabbed all the headlines, other innovative concepts like the eye-catching Maruti Suzuki A-Star which is the first car to be completely developed in India and would sell between Rs. 3-4 Lakh and the ultra-fuel efficient Honda Jazz got sidelined. These 2 models are expected to hit the Indian Roads by early next year and are highly recommended buys as they are both stylish and fuel efficient.

Well, you must have surely read a lot about the Auto Expo by now, so we won’t bore you too much with words. Instead we present our exclusive coverage of the show in pictures below.