It looks like we are not the only ones to be having a Mr V day! The Economic Time published an interesting profile of V Sunil today:

The article talks about V Sunil’s career, successes and, ahem, his passion for adult movies. Read the piece here.

In an interview with The Economic Times, Rahul Bhatia of IndiGo speaks about the airline industry, IndiGo’s success and plans for the future of India’s coolest airline.

“Our competition is from ground transport – buses and trains. IndiGo is built on creating a new market. People who fly once a month now fly thrice a month because of great fares. People who never flew want to fly. That’s our market and that I think it has great opportunities. Our business is not to poach on other people’s businesses. It is not the way this company works.”

Read the full interview here.

Indigo just signed the largest deal in aviation history, acquiring 180 A320s from Airbus.

Which we are extremely happy about, because it means a lot more passengers will be able to enjoy the food packaging and merchandise designed with love by W+K Delhi and the IndiGo team.

So more cookie-tins:

More sandwich entertainment:

More street-cool food:

And of course more pretty tags, fun lines, carefully designed features.

Read about the airbus order on The Wall Street Journal and on The Economic Times.

It was forgotten in Cape Town harbour for weeks by heartless couriers. It had to cross the ocean alone in a long, perilous journey. And then, once it touched land, it had to face all the adversities of Indian customs.

It was tough, and took much longer than expected, but it finally made it. Design Indaba successfully completed its epic journey from the ancient land of Africa to the ancient land of India and will be sitting resplendently on newstands from tomorrow.

Go say welcome.

Design Indaba “Made in India” is available at all leading bookstores including Media Mart, Crossword, Landmark, Oxford, Galgotia’s, Om Book Shop, Midland, Vandana, Bahri & Sons and at leading newsstands.

Finally, the long wait has come to an end: Design Indaba special India issue, “Once we were cool” has entered the building. Of course, the arrival of the magazine has been celebrated in perfect Indian style. Which means we had a big launch party.

Design Indaba magazine publisher Ravi Naidoo came all the way from South Africa and Wednesday night we had a beautiful time celebrating India, its culture, its heritage. A good mix of culturalistas, publishers, designers, writers, artists and all sorts of interesting people came out to party with us.

Charming old-school decorations, whiskey cocktails and a good bit of dancing: it was a great night.

Wish you were there.

Once we were cool gift bags with Dewar’s whiskey glasses

V Sunil, Annette Ekin, Mohit Jayal, Annalisa Merelli and Ravi Naidoo

Peter Nagy and Bharat Sikka

Luisa Halle’n, Isaac Vivek and Semaila Khan

A huge thanks to Magique for hosting us, to Dewar’s for the delicious cocktails (the Darjeeling Cooler was a big hit), to Campaign India for all the support and promoting the magazine, and to all the friends who helped out and came to the launch.

The next issue of Motherland is going very well, thanks.

Of course, the theme is still absolutely confidential, but a news that we can and are happy to share is that there is a new entry in Motherland’s team: extraordinary photographer and long time W+K Delhi friend Bharat Sikka, who will be joint creative director of the magazine, partnering with V Sunil.

We like.

The solar eclipse of 15th January, 2010 will be the century’s longest eclipse, having a totality duration of 11 minutes, 8 seconds (visible in India for 10 minutes, 24 seconds). It starts at 10:44 AM IST (5:14 AM GMT) and ends at 2:29 PM IST (8:59 AM GMT). This is an annular eclipse, that is the apparent diameter of the Moon is slightly smaller than the apparent size of the Sun. Thus at totality (when the entire disc of the Moon covers the Sun), the Sun forms a bright ring (or “annulus”, hence the name) around the Moon.

The eclipse can be best seen in India in the town of Dhanushkodi at the southern tip of Rameshwaram.

Here is how the eclipse will look at totality near Dhanushkodi:

Following this are the scenes of maxima in the major cities of India:

Delhi

Bombay

Calcutta

Bangalore

Chennai

Do not stare at the sun during the eclipse. This is not granny wisdom. It is science.

via techie-buzz.com

The definitive name in online shopping, ebay, has announced its partnership with W+K Delhi. Luring the traditionally staid Indian consumer to the internet may be easier said than done, but we like a good challenge as much as the layman loves a good bargain. Wait and watch.