Whether you come for business, education, or leisure, India's capital city Delhi offers you countless opportunities to spend your time. To help you make the most of this mega-city, we have gathered together over 100 interesting, fun, and often unconventional ideas into one handy guide. See how many you manage to tick off before you leave - that is, if you intend to leave behind the city's excitement at all…


ACTIVITIES:

1. Learn Hindustani, the lingua franca of the Indian Subcontinent (that covers the continuum of the standard registers Hindi and Urdu). For Delhi this is a real Must - and will make you enjoy the city all the more!

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There is loads of fun to be had during your time in Chengdu, whether you come for business, education, or leisure. To help you make the most of this "heavenly city" we have gathered together over 100 ideas into one handy guide. See how many you mangage to tick off before you leave - that is, if you manage to leave at all…

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If you are on a special such-and-such-free diet like me, you know the kind of questions going through your mind before leaving for your next foreign destination. What will I be able to eat? How will I find the dishes that I can eat? How will I explain to people in a polite way that I can’t eat their national dish due to some never-heard-of-before condition? Of course, one answer is to stock up on all kinds of dried foods, muesli bars, packed cookies and nutritional drinks that will, under extreme circumstances, help you survive for a minimum of two weeks. But this is not what my vision of traveling and cultural discovery looks like. I’m not an astronaut. Nor I am travelling to lands that are as plain and arid as the moon. Taking precautions is good. But retreat is not the answer. So every new land is like a barely mapped territory to me, and I’m like the explorer.

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While rushing through urban areas of today, you can see millions of attention dragging commercials everywhere you look. If you keep your eyes open more carefully you’ll also find lots of artistic expressions of thoughts and wishes using public walls as communication platforms; expressions created by individuals that are reflecting diverse opinions, which might not necessarily be shared by the whole of society and often not occur in the mass media. In Delhi these days you can see graffiti, stencils and stickers with a clearly political message – on flyovers, bus-stands, street-signs and auto-rickshaws.

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Most people have no concept of the term 'open source' in general, or the maybe more specific term “open source software” (OSS) in particular. Even a little bit more confusing, many people from the industry use the term “Free and Open Source Software” (FOSS), and that is also the one the author is using throughout this article. But in order to grasp the subject, let us first clarify it a little more:

Let us start from the beginning, with the word “free”. Although many people have an immediate idea of the meaning of this rather simple word, many do not see the double meaning here. Most commonly, this double meaning is explained by the “free as in free beer, but also free as in free speech” idiom.

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Innovations in the Indian hospitality sector can be analysed on many different levels. This analysis makes the attempt to give a broad overview on innovations taking place in the industry according to various categories of hotels as well as relevant functions, concluding with a brief outlook on future directions these innovations might take.

India holds a special place in the international world of hospitality. Culturally the country might very well be the most diverse place in the world. It is a vivid kaleidoscope of landscapes, magnificent historical sites and royal cities, misty mountain retreats, colourful people, rich cultures, and festivities. Luxurious and destitute, hot and cold, chaotic and tranquil, ancient and modern - India's extremes rarely fail to leave a lasting impression.

Hospitality is a long running tradition in India. From the majestic Himalayas and the stark deserts of Rajasthan, over beautiful beaches and lush tropical forests, to idyllic villages and bustling cities, India offers unique opportunities for every individual preference. However, until fairly recently this was hardly evident when looking at India's hospitality industry.

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Nowadays, in India’s capital New Delhi everybody seems to be talking about the Commonwealth Games. New metro lines, construction of roads and flyovers, stadiums being renovated and many other buildings appearing out of nowhere, the whole of Delhi is changing under the impulsion of the Games. And that's only the beginning, as the Games start only in October. The vision of the Commonwealth Games is becoming increasingly visible all over Delhi – but what exactly is the Commonwealth?

The Commonwealth of Nations is an intergovernmental organisation of 54 member states on all the continents, bringing together about 30% of the world's population, which means around two billion people of diverse cultures and faiths.

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In the past few years, the immigration debate in France has become more and more impassioned. A new ministry name, “selective immigration”, plans for new laws, changes in the Nationality Code and debates about deportation are the media’s daily bread. However, in France, this debate can’t be separated from the particular experiences of the several previous waves of immigration (Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, African) and especially of the North African immigration. Arab people, Islam and French suburbs are nowadays unavoidable topics in the immigration debate.

And as usual, you will never hear of the positive aspects (e.g. cases of successful integration), only of the problems that fuel the debate and grab attention. Very recently, for example, the controversy regarding the ticket given to a French Arab woman driver wearing a burqa led to a new project to revise the Nationality Code to remove the French nationality of her husband (acquired by marriage) who is suspected of polygamy and social benefits fraud. The extreme-right parties happily jump on these kinds of stories to demand the strengthening of laws against immigration.

Let’s try to rebalance the debate... What is the reality of the North African immigrants and their ”heirs” (as the European Union sometimes refers to them) in France today?

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The information and news about Pakistan these days show us a dark picture of the country and there doesn’t seem to be too much reason to believe in the improvement of the country’s uncertain future. Our stereotypes about Pakistan, media images and public opinion often lead to false conclusions. To many observers politics in Pakistan seem more and more infiltrated by radical beliefs, religious fundamentalism, corruption, the military or authoritarian leadership.

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Hindi, Urdu, Tamil, Bengali....this is just a small selection of languages spoken in India. With over 400 languages and thousands of dialects, it is difficult to keep track of them. It is therefore not surprising that people in India are growing up in a multilingual surrounding. Something not necessarily resulting out of this, but becoming more and more common are the phenomena called ‘Code Switching’ (switching from one language to another) and ‘Code Mixing’ (mixing of two or more languages) which have become normal for many Indians. Hinglish, which is a combination of Hindi and English, is probably the most established example for ‘Code Mixing’ in India. It is not only widely spoken there, but also in the U.S. and in Great Britain, which is not surprising regarding the large numbers of Indians living in these countries.

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