One of the best pop/rock groups of the 80s, Depeche Mode have unleashed an awesome album on an unsuspecting world. Playing The Angel, their latest musical saga of ‘pain and suffering’, suffused with Dave Gahan’s incredible voice, some masterly techno-riffs and post-modern sounds, is proof that music is not dead. In these days of vomit inducing hip-hop, utterly mindless remixes and music videos (hey, what happened to music audios?), there’s hope for people like me.

At 1.30 am on a Monday morning – June 26, 2006, to be precise – I was transported to the arena in London where Depeche Mode were having a gig. If only for one song Read the rest of this entry »

Being a motoring journalist, you do get to drive some powerful machines around, even those with six-cylinder engines. But yesterday I drove for a little bit a turbocharged V6-engined behemoth that could out-Phantom the Phantom. And it was a Mercedes too! This machine had all of 12,000cc to play with, and 394 horsepower and about 186 kgm of torque too. As also 16 - yes, 16 - forward gears. Okay, enough playing around. It was not a passenger car, but a truck. DaimlerChrysler India launched two variants of their Mercedes-Benz Actros tipper in the country for mining applications. Read the rest of this entry »