It’s February already, the month of love. As India comprises of the maximum youth population, it will be interesting to know their plans for February 14th.
We asked some of them, about their plans for 2010 V-day.

The age group was 18-25 and 26-35 years.

We asked what their plans for 14th febuary are.

Most said they would like to find out the meaning of love by being alone! 32% said they are going out with boyfriend/ girlfriend and 28% said love is all about friendship so they want to be with friends.

If they have to give something to their love what would they give?

Most of the college goers’ 1st choice was flowers or chocolates. But few rich girls admitted they would not mind giving mobile, mp3 player or even USB drive to their boyfriends. Few guys even don’t mind buying dress as a gift.

But a handwritten love letter or a poem is still a classic choice among all age group, closely followed by a candle light dinner which is a more practical choice by both sexes.

People don’t mind carrying flowers and that’s the reason you will not get a rose for less than Rs. 20 a piece on that day

And when it was asked do they really feel there should be a special day for LOVE.

57% said yes! We need a day to express love. 17% were confused what exactly they want and 26% said any day is best day to propose about love.

But if there is love, there will be war too! Like, in past few years Valentine’s Day has been disliked by Shiv Sena. In Mumbai and surrounding areas Bal Thackeray and their activists even warned people not to celebrate and attacked restaurant, public places. Remember last year’s Pink Chaddi campaign, a non-violent protest movement launched in February 2009 in response to notable incidences of violence citing conservative and perceived violations of Indian culture, when a group of women were attacked in a pub in Mangalore.

Let’s see how this valentine day goes!

Recently Pantone (Pantone Inc, world’s color authority from 45 years) forecasted the Color of the Year for 2010, which is an inviting and luminous hue PANTONE 15-5519 Turquoise (vibrant blue-green). Combining the serene qualities of blue and the invigorating aspects of green, Turquoise inspires thoughts of soothing, tropical waters and a comforting escape from the everyday troubles of the world, while at the same time restoring our sense of wellbeing.

Other colors that will be seen in 2010 are – Turquoise — Pantone 15-5519 (vibrant blue-green)
Tomato Purée (classic red), Fusion Coral (warm orange), Violet (light purplish hue), Tuscany (warm beige), Aurora (slightly greenish yellow), Amparo Blue (a warmer navy), Pink Champagne (delicate pale neutral), Dried Herb (green neutral) and Eucalyptus (practical gray).

So will turquoise rule in India in coming year 2010? For sure, it is a surprisingly versatile color. It looks great with white, make an awesome contrast with Indian orange and red and with green make a cooler combination. It can work with just about any other color and in any style of décor.
In fashion; it will definitively make you stand different. It’s strong enough for men but delicate enough for women. Remember the Men ties in turquoise color making bold statement, now a days bride want to try new colors apart from clichéd red and getting dressed in turquoise color lehnga is very trendy.
Anyway, turquoise can be used as an accent color- From draping a scarf around neck to hanging in turquoise in ears. Turquoise, an opaque, blue-to-green mineral and very popular gemstone combination with silver jewelry.

Hope to see more of turquoise in India, that will surely cool down the recession fever.

There are already many water purifiers from different companies but none is less than 1000 Rs. But Tata Swach (means Clean) comes for Rs 799 only. It doesn’t require energy or running water. It has a replaceable filter Swach that cost Rs. 1 per day for a family of five. Launched by Mr. Ratan Tata with the saying “Safe Drinking (Swatch Pani) is the most basic need of human beings. The social cost of water contamination is already enormous.” Tata Swatch has been developed by collaboration of Group of Tata companies- Tata Chemicals, TCS, Titan Industry. 14 patents have been filed for the technology and product.

Tata Swach will be available in two versions priced at Rs 749 and Rs 999. The cost of the filter is Rs 299 and it has the capacity to filter 3000 litres of water. Tata Swach filter uses commonly available materials like rice husk ash, cement and pebbles and bound with microscopic silver particles that kill the bacteria responsible for 80 per cent of waterborne diseases, colour, odour and micro-organisms.

But main question is how many of us know what are TDS and contaminations? Why we need to have a water purifier and which one (Pre filter, UV Purification, Reverse Osmosis, Candle filter)?
In short- we should drink water which is about 50 ppm in TDS (total dissolved solids). Anything above 750-1000 means your water is very contaminated. But apart from considering TDS, make sure there is no heavy metal in it. Reverse Osmosis removes dissolved solids of and above the size 0.0009-0.007 microns.

Water purification Market in recent years has caught the attention of multinationals. Hindustan Unilever launched Pureit in 2005, while Philips India launched Philips Intelligent Water Purifier in 2007. But Aquaguard continues to be the leader in this category, where the penetration of water purifiers is a mere 2.5 %. (Source TOI)

As of now the cheapest water purifier in market are Hindustan Unilever-Pureit for Rs 2000 and Eureka Forbes-AquaSure, 1750 Rs. and Tata Swatch is for only 799 INR. Tata Swach will be available in Maharashtra, Karnataka and West Bengal market by the year-end and across the nation in next six months. Let’s see how much Swach makes the India’s drinking water habits clean!

We asked the youngsters of India, what type of water do they drink? While drinking do they consider is it tabs water, filter or mineral water?
Most of us answered they rely on filter water system installed in their hostel/ Mess/ Institute/ Company without worrying is it really giving clean water. When at home, they install a water purifier but don’t go such expensive 15,000 Rs type systems. They still like to have 20 litre bottles (Bislery, Aquafina, Kingfisher or local one like Aqua Life) at the cost 50- 75 Rs. As it’s easy to store, without worrying about from tab water is coming or not and for 2 persons 20 Litre is sufficient for 4-5days.

When they go out to restaurant, prefer to have normal water (read filter water from hotel), hardly like to buy mineral water unless there is emergency or not well or eating at a small food joint. But when it comes to travel via bus/ train they don’t mind, buying mineral water bottle for journey. Many still consider boiled water is best though its inconvenient- 1st boil & than make it cool down. Most of them aware mineral water selling at 12Rs is hardly filled with mineral, its just packaged drinking water. Some of them don’t mind to have normal water (unless completely dirty & black) as it make their immune system strong.

It is clear more than 50% parents think that they will decide the career for child and only 15% thought they could decide their career by themselves. 60% thinks a child herself can decide the career better.

48% thinks that they were forced to go ahead with career decided by their parents. While 30% refused to pursue what was told by their parents, 60% pursued a different career from what they thought in their childhood.

Choosing a different career option which is less known is not a problem among 62%, which came as a pleasant surprise. But when asked, will a foreign degree help in career 35% said no, it would not and 29% said it might help them.

Our take: It is important for one to decide their career wisely rather than depending on someone else’s choice. All the best!

A career in Design!

As kids we are often asked, what would you like to become in future and we proudly say doctor or engineer. But as soon we enter the competitive world, right from school grades to college toppers, our choices and tastes differ. We recognize our weakness and strength.
Today, Trendiya is focusing on a career in Design. Some are born creative and some feel that a little bit of understanding of the subject will give them chance to be a professional designer. But when we say Design, we are often misunderstood for fashion design! Yes, that’s a common thinking in the middle class families of tier 2 cities. If you say, you are pursuing a career in design they will say, oh, fashion designing, please stitch a dress for my nephew wedding too! Or at the maximum they will understand about interior design, something that will help a girl to get a good groom when looking for wedding proposals.

Design is a highly creative, imaginative field with an eye for details, precision, that involves exploring new materials and sorting out a problem. It could be either Industrial design (product, transportation, toys, glass & ceramic design), communication design (graphic, film & video or animation), IT integrated design (new media, software user interface design), Fashion & Textile (Fashion & apparel, textile, accessories design) or Exhibition & Retail design or designing for Craft sector. Many more new specializations are coming up. Like design management is one of the most sought after lucrative career in corporate world.

NIFT, one of the most sought after institutes in India and with maximum number of centres (total 13) all over, NIFT offers B Des. in Fashion, leather, accessory, textile, knitwear design and also in fashion communication & Apparel production. Master programs in design, Fashion management and Fashion Technology are also offered. For details check www.nift.ac.in

The other one is National Institute of Design (NID), one of the foremost multi-disciplinary institutions in the field of design education and research. It has undergraduate & post graduate programmes and admission is through entrance test, followed by Studio test + interview. It has centres in Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar and Bangalore and few more are coming up. Check the site www.nid.edu and apply before due date- 20 nov.!

Other institutes are Shristi (Bangalore), Pearl academy of fashion (New Delhi), Indian institute of crafts & design (Jaipur), Footwear design & development institute (Noida) and Symbiosis institute of Design (Pune). DJ Academy, Coimbatore and Indian Institute of Technology also offers specialization in Design like IITD, IDC and IIT Guwahati.

The general skills required are: Creativity, imagination, drawing & sketching, Color sensitivity, visual perception, material handling, representation techniques, Context building, communication skills, problem-solving skills, general awareness and computer skills.

A good news!- If you are design enthusiast student and going to apply for a design institute you can write to team trendiya for ‘how to prepare’.

India is called ‘the golden bird’. But gold is becoming rare thing nowadays. Just like February month, last month again gold prices touched Rs 16,000 per 10 grams mark and expectation are similar at this Diwali time

As per Hindu mythology, Brahma –the creator is also referred as Hiranyagarbha – means ‘one born of gold’. Gold is the basis of purity and beauty, and referred to as the seed of Agni (Fire). Gold, a common monetary exchange medium (in old time) and jewelry are well sought by a rich urbane person to a poor farmer.
Either it’s a wedding time where dowry or gifts will not be complete without adding lots of tolas (carats) of gold. So is the case for festivals like Dussehra / Durga Puja or Diwali or Onam, Pongal time – Gold becomes very important.

But things are changing, specially in metro or 2 tier cities. Girls don’t want to wear yellow gold jewelry. Diamonds are girl’s best friend, and white gold goes well with it. Flaunting engagement ring in White Gold is not rare! Platinum is an expensive option, White gold is the next best option.

Silver jewelry is also a preferred choice by many young women and most of the college chicks love junk jewelry.

In all this, the shine of Gold Jewelry is fading away as a timeless possession.

Image source: rediff.com

Recently Shilpa Shetty was found wearing same dress for Harper Bazar October 2009 issue that Twinkle Khanna wore for Sept 2009 cover of L’Officiel.

In Hollywood too, singers Pink and Shakira were seen wearing the same dress for MTV Video Music Awards 2009.

Whatever the reason, readers and viewers are not minding it.

Image source: Getty Images

So some are making news by saying, why we don’t remember long forgotten unsung hero Lal Bahadur Shastri who also has birthday today.

Apart from politicians who visited Rajghat to pay homage-

In real world, everyone is busy and no one bothered but everyone is curious about ‘What twitter is and how to be on twitter’. Apart from new media evangelist, latest on twitter are politicians. Rest are journalist to ad world gurus to bollywood actors and writer etc. Might be all this made India rank 3rd : in twitter users list after USA & Germany.

Someone questions why a holiday for Gandhi birthday. If we want to follow what he said, then we should work.

So some Bollywood celebrities are today concerned about plain life of Gandhi ji and and waiting to see #Gandhi as a trending topic.

So some people did not like Gandhi as a personality.

But still many are waiting to see him on Twitter trends with #Gandhi or Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, father of modern India and icon of austerity and nonviolence.

Google too marks Gandhi’s birthday with a special logo.

Some are still wondering why they could make #gandhi a trend.

Some says he is a forever trendsetter!

This is how we Young India are celebrating Gandhi’s birthday. By tweeting

Tweet tweet wishes to over heros!

The consumer durables are a Rs30,000 crore industry. and to cover last year’s loss they are offering big blast offer on products and in return they are expecting double growth too.

Like if you buy 8K or above Samsung digital camera, you will get 4K worth Reebok sunglass apart from 4GB memory card + pouch which is coming with almost all digi-cams. Canon made a deal with Philips by giving digital frame free with digital camera.

Whirlpool, the American appliances company is giving Reebok goodies apart from Microwave etc. And if one is looking for buying most desired huge wall mounted big screen TV, Sony Bravia came up with Home theatre with discounted prices. Or one can choose to buy Samsung new LED television and get another TV free.

You pick up any newspaper – it’s filled with lots of advertisement from Jewelry to home décor to what to gift this Diwali and tagged discounts offers. Want to go for great vacation at cheap deal or buy a real estate or drive home a new car at special price? – rush to the internet sites and there are plenty of sites offering the same. Even there are surprise discounts for hair cut to other beauty stuff. You name it and there are some discounts for you.

That’s why retail stores like Croma (electronics Chain by TATA) MD & CEO, Ajit Joshi is expecting 30-40% growth in footfalls as compared to last Diwali. So is L.G. director Marketing V. Ramachandran is confident about more accelerating growth something like 35-40%.

But if we go as per the CNBC – TV18 analytics, consumer confidence index is dropped by 1% means consumers are more interested in saving their hard earned money for any hard time. Studies also say that the bounce in economy is fuelled by government stimulus packages rather than consumer spending.

I will definitely do my bit by shopping this Diwali, let’s see if that changes consumer confidence index!

Apart from beautifully designed pandals or tents for placing Durga idols, Navratri is celebrated differently in different parts of India. In Gujarat and Maharashtra, its celebrated with the famous Garba and Dandiya dance which continue till late night during the period. The festival is known as golu in South India, a Golu or Kolu in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Bommai Kolu display is placed in the homes in Andhra Pradesh & Karnataka, which is an exhibition of dolls. In Bengal, Durga Puja is the most important festival and they rejoice with sound of Dhak, Dhunuchi nachh and mild fragrance of Shiuli (some flowers).

Food, music & dance.
Its either gawking on food after breaking fast in Ramazan month and enjoying the Eid feast with Saviyan,and Biryani along with Sufi music and qawwali. For the music – Coke studio music is liked these days by today’s generation.

In Navratri fast you can eat so many vegetarian items that you will not miss chicken!! The items range from Sighare or Kuttu ke atte ki Puri and Aloo Sabzi and Sabudana (Sago) Khichdi, and Makhane ki kheer in deserts are just a few names. Many restaurants in North India turn vegetarian (in some dishes they don’t even add garlic & onion) and offer navratra special food and you would not mind going specifically to eat it. From five start hotels Taj & Hyatt to Haldiram’s, you can enjoy it anywhere.

‘Su che’ song from “What’s your Rashee” is already tuned in many events and so what if Priyanka Chopra is getting excited to attend a dandiya night in Mumbai and tweeting about same, girls in other cities are not less excited. They are taking out their backless chaniya choli, bandini Ghagra with lots of mirror work & jewelry and boys are dressing up in Kedias (Gujarati dress for men) and dancing out with Dandiya sticks on the music of Dhol.

In food, going vegetarian is the demand of festival and picking rich textures and bright colors with glitter is choice of consumers in dresses.

Sweets pics courtesy- www.trivialmatters.blogspot.com

Congress chairperson Sonia Gandhi on Monday, Sep 14 travelled to Mumbai in the economy class via flight, setting an example for all ministers. In fact, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee travelled to Kolkata by economy class and External Affairs Minister SM Krishna traveled to Belarus in the economy class of a Lufthansa flight. He also said that he would be using commercial flights for his travels henceforth.

It has been almost a week that all news channel and TV channels are going gaga over austerity drive by the central government and congress party. It started few days back when the government asked foreign minister S M Krishna and his deputy Shashi Tharoor to give up the five-star accommodation they were enjoying in Delhi even if they were paying from own pockets. And so what if union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar didn’t like cost-cutting in travelling saying business class provides comfort, privacy and allows them to clear files even while flying.

The effect is that now Union civil aviation minister Praful Patel had to travel to Mumbai by the low-cost carrier Indigo and Union heavy industries minister Vilasrao Deshmukh came to Mumbai from Delhi by SpiceJet and Union power minister Sushilkumar Shinde flew economy on Air India to Delhi.

Other side, railway minister Mamata Banerjee says “she has been practising austerity for decades”. Banerjee, who has not yet taken the official car, and commute in a private vehicle to office and fly in economy class and pay for own snacks. A jhola slunging over shoulders a cotton saree and hawai chappal in feet is what Mamta Banarjee’s trademark. She really lives like an ‘aam janta’ as she feels ‘commoners are the strength of the country’.

Youngsters are looking forward to seeing Rahul Gandhi in same train compartment or high flying cabinet minister in low budget flight with them. Let’s see, how long this austerity drive goes among Indian Politicians. Will they really enjoy this trend and set some example or will it create problems just like today, when Rahul Gandhi’s train was stoned. Austerity at the cost of security!