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Unless you have been living under a rock, you would have known by now that the capital city of New Delhi will be hosting the 19th Commonwealth Games in another 16 days.  The games will start off with an Opening Cermony on the 3rd of October 2010 and run till the 14th of October 2010.  The 12 day extravaganza has gone through a lot of controversies about venues not being prepared on time, corruption in the organisation and stuff.

At the end of the day, Kalmadi and his band of merry men still reign.  He is determined to put up a good show fully knowing that the whole country is looking to pin him down on a single mistake of his. Whether all the spending has been worth it or if the organising comittee and the people involved in the same have been corrupt is for time to tell and for the investigative departments to find out.

Meanwhile, lets keep our differences aside and put up a positive cheerful face for the world to see.  With just 16 days to go for the games to happen, i plan to have a roundup of the venues and the changes the games have brought to New Delhi.

First of all, the games village which had a soft opening yesterday and going by the reivews of the people who have seen it, its mighty impressive.  Our crappy media will for sure find some negative points to ham about, but lets look at the brigther side of life.

The gym in the games village

Kitchen @ the games village

Shera looks hungry

Leisure swimming pool @ the games village

Complete schedule of the games and the venues can be seen at the games website here

All pictures courtesy: NDTV

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The Queen of England passing the baton to Indian President Pratibha Patil

Suresh Kalmadi & Abhinav Bindra

Shera, the mascot of 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games

Kapil Dev, Randhawa and Sebastian Coe with the baton

Dancers performing in front of the Buckingham palace.

Milkha Singh, Malleshwari, Sushil Kumar & Dilip Tirkey

Commonwealth Games website

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Hitec City

Hyderabad on Sunday (24th August) became the second largest city in India — in terms of geographical spread — and thus joined the elite league of metropolitan cities. With Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) replacing the Hyderabad Urban Development Authority (Huda), the state capital, which earlier enjoyed A1 status with a population of 75 lakhs spread across 725 sq. km of area, has now surpassed four other metros in terms of area: Mumbai (4,272 sq. km); Delhi (1,483 sq. km); Kolkata (1,425 sq. km) and; Chennai (1,167 sq. km).

A rendering of the upcoming Lanco Hills with its Signature tower

With a spread of 7,000 sq. km, Hyderabad is second only to Bengaluru, which is the largest metropolitan in India with an area of 8,000 sq. km. Apart from the 16 mandals of Hyderabad and 22 mandals of Ranga Reddy, 10 of the Medak district, four of Nalgonda and two mandals of the Mahbubnagar district have now come within the HMDA’s purview. The Chief Minister, Dr Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy set the foundation stone for the HMDA central office near Hitex in Hyderabad on Sunday. While addressing the gathering, Dr Rajasekhar Reddy assured the residents of the twin cities that within the next four to five months, they will receive 24-hour piped water supply.

Statue of Buddha standing in the middle of Hussain Sagar lake

Dr Reddy said that the formation of the HMDA — by merging adjacent municipalities and villages with Hyderabad — has paved the way for the state capital’s development as a model metropolis. Several ministers and legislators also participated in the ceremony. The Huda vice-chairman, Mr K.S. Jawahar Reddy, has been appointed as HMDA metro commissioner.

News source: Deccan Chronicle

All pictures courtesy: Wikipedia & Skyscrapercity

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Yup, am dejected that the Deccan Chargers have ended up with a wodden spoon. To see that they have ended up as the Dhakkans of the inagural Indian Premier League (IPL) tournament is painful. Anyway, we are into the last 3 days of the competition and the worthies are in the semis. No questions.

So, who will be the champions? I would fancy Rajasthan, but Punjab Kings XI is also a pretty balanced and strong team. Priety Zinta smothered each team member with kisses and hugs for every win. I can understand the Punjab team’s motivation to win the tournament anticipating more kisses and hugs by Priety. (No offense meant towards Priety Zinta. I have the highest regards for the lady. She had the balls to stand up in court and give evidence against the underworld when the so called heroes Salman Khan and SRK chickened out. Leading to someone christening her as ‘the only male’ in the Bollywood industry)

Anyways, coming back to the topic, Chennai and Delhi are clearly the weaker of the 4 teams in the semis. But then who knows, Dhoni or Sehwag might fire too. I feel its an evenly poised semi final line up. Anyone can be a winner.

What makes me the happiest is that both Kolkata and Mumbai are out. I cant stand SRK and so is my distaste for anything Mumbai Though am sad for Pollock and Jayasuriya. Pollock captained the team pretty well after Bhajji’s slapgate. But then Sachin screwed it up altogether once he returned. Thank God he was not given the Indian captaincy long enough.

So, who would you like to see win the IPL ?

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Tata (Trent), Reliance (Fresh), Birla (More) and now Dabur (New U), the retail revolution is at full steam. How much will this affect the neighborhood mom and pop stores is something that only time will tell. As for the consumer, its never been so good. Enjoy.

Dabur’s first retail store will open for business on Thursday (today). Branded New U, Dabur hopes to take the business international.

It is the new kid on the block! Dabur’s first retail store New U opens in Delhi on Thursday. With a target of 75,000 sq ft retail space by 2009, the company aims to have about 25 stores within a year. Dabur’s retail venture is being operated out of a wholly owned subsidiary called Health & Beauty Stores Limited. Dabur India will invest Rs 140 crore towards its retail foray by 2010. Its next stop is the new Hyderabad airport, and the company may look at taking its venture overseas as well.

Peter Baker, CEO, H&B Stores, said, “Our parent company has operations overseas. There are opportunities for such a format in other countries. So yes, there is that possibility.”

Dabur aims at touching Rs 1,000 crore in revenue from H&B stores by 2010. These stores will be company owned and operated, however, Dabur India will not invest in real estate, but lease out space. New U stores will have about 20,000 SKUs from not only the Dabur house but other leading FMCG players as well.

In a month’s time, the company will launch private labels in the personal care category. According to the company, these will be sourced from Thailand and China and will be 20-25% cheaper than other products available in the market.

Taking a cue from Hindustan Unilever’s foray into beauty saloons, Dabur will set up beauty parlours in stores as well. The first one is likely to open within a month.

Above news courtesy: Moneycontrol
Picture source: Blogger-Progress

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