This year it is on Auust 16

Quoted: On the day of Rakshabandhan, the girls take the rakhi which is attached to the strip of a cardboard and put in on top of a thali full of sweets. Covering her head with her dupatta, the sister sits in front of her brother, dabs his forehead with vermilion, saffron and rice powder, takes the colourful rakhi and ties it to his wrist she will then take a piece of some sweet meat and playfully stuff it in her brother's mouth. He, in his turn, as a mark of his affection places some money on the thali. All that day, till the evening the brother will keep the rakhi on his wrist. It is also customary to fry poories and cook vermicelli pudding on this occasion.

Quoted: In the last century, Mohandas K. Gandhi was India’s most famous and powerful private citizen. Today, Mr. Ambani is widely regarded as playing that role, though in a very different way. Like Mr. Gandhi, Mr. Ambani belongs to a merchant caste known as the modh banias, is a vegetarian and a teetotaler and is a revolutionary thinker with bold ideas for what India ought to become.

Yet Mr. Gandhi was a scrawny ascetic, a champion of the village, a skeptic of modernity and a man focused on spiritual purity. Mr. Ambani is a fleshy oligarch, a champion of the city, a burier of the past and a man who deftly — and, some critics say, ruthlessly — wields financial power. He is the richest person in India, with a fortune estimated in the tens of billions of dollars, and many people here expect that he will be the richest person on earth before long.

Quoted: India Currents is an important facet of America’s emerging multicultural identity—a monthly publication devoted to the exploration of the heritage and culture of India as it exists in the United States. The magazine covers a wide range of subjects—music, dance, film, literature, travel, recipes, business—that are of interest to Indian-Americans and Indophiles. At the heart of the magazine is a comprehensive calendar of Indian events, used extensively by readers to plan their leisure and entertainment.

Wishing you a happy Holi. It is on 21st March

Quoted: The festival of Holi is celebrated on the day after the full moon in early March every year. Originally a festival to celebrate good harvests and fertility of the land, Holi is now a symbolic commemmoration of a legend from Hindu Mythology. The story centres around an arrogant king who resents his son Prahlada worshipping Lord Vishnu. He attempts to kill his son but fails each time. Finally, the king's sister Holika who is said to be immune to burning, sits with the boy in a huge fire. However, the prince Prahlada emerges unscathed, while his aunt burns to death. Holi commemorates this event from mythology, and huge bonfires are burnt on the eve of Holi as its symbolic representation.

Quoted: India is riding high on outsourcing.

Information technology and IT-enabled services will employ 4 million people in 2008 and account for 7% of gross domestic product and 33% of India's foreign-exchange inflows, according to Nasscom, an Indian IT industry organization

The death of this industry is far from anyone's mind.

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On 14th January.

Quoted: Makara Sankranti is celebrated in the month of Magh and is a harvest festival. It is a celebration of spring on the occasion of the 'ascent' of the sun to the north (Uttarayana).

All you want to know about India

Quoted: Facts about the land, people, history, government, political conditions, economy, foreign relations of India.

Nice site for tourists.

Quoted: The Department of Tourism, Government of India, Incredible India helps you plan your Indian holiday, with destination information, holiday themes that cover adventure sports, ayurveda, religion, wildlife, heritage monuments, yoga, beaches, Backwaters, Himalayas, hill resorts, pilgrimages, Buddhist circuits and more. Know more about Indian art, culture, festivals, cuisine. Use the interactive trip planner to ask our registered agents for a travel or hotel package that fits your needs. Download beautiful wallpapers and screensavers, view ads, sign up for our newsletter. Access a host of travelers’ tools, tips and FAQs, including maps, weather, currency calculator, links to state tourism sites, airlines and railways sites for online flight and train bookings.

Basic information on Classical Indian dances

Quoted: Dance in India, is rooted in age-old tradition. This vast sub-continent has given birth to varied forms of dancing, each shaped by the influences of a particular period and environment. These pristine forms have been preserved through the centuries, to become a part of our present culture, a living heritage which is both our pride and delight.