Yahoo! India Answers blog

Hello there, everyone! It’s been an eventful few months, and interacting with our community here at Answers has been as exciting as ever.

Adele, beautiful talented Adele, has been in the spotlight for a while now, with her powerful music and incredible voice. Rolling in the Deep and Someone like You are requested for every hour on the radio, are must-haves on every playlist, and can persuade even the most reticent bathroom singer into humming along. Adele has been nominated for 6 awards at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards due to take place in Los Angeles on 12th February, 2012. We checked in with our users on what the odds are of her cleaning out the Grammys.  Our TC Wendigo believes it’s unlikely as sweeps at the Grammys are very rare. But there is also a strong community out there rooting for her and cheering her on. Good luck to you, Adele.  We’re crossing our fingers for you.

2011 has been a year of many losses in Indian music. Very recently, we bid farewell to the Evergreen Dev Anand. Our editors too, felt the loss dearly; there were many outpourings of grief in the office. A memorial page was created to document tributes, and we invited Yahoo! users to join in and pay their respects to the Peter Pan of Bollywood. We received an overwhelming 250+ responses, as readers shared childhood memories of their beloved hero, and how he is inextricable linked to the magic of cinema. We invite you to write your own tribute, as you read the memorials here.

Touching on some burning issues across the country, like FDI in retail, and the new political tinge to the Anna movement, made us realize that there are strong opinions out there, if divided. While most believe FDI will be a positive change, benefiting the consumer by lowering prices and increasing quality, creating more jobs and pulling India out of recession, others believe that FDI is not suitable for a country like India which is still in early stages of development, where population, inflation and illiteracy are high.  The Anna issue also sees divided support. A large section believe that things have to become political before progress can be made, while others who support Team Anna’s ideals against corruption feel the cause will lose validity if given a political agenda. And the debate rages on…

With all the glitz surrounding Dirty Picture and Vidya Balan’s delicious performance as Silk Smitha, we decided to check in with our readers on whether Size Zero was still the in thing. Could the unabashed portrayal of retro sex-appeal change what is popularly perceived as beautiful?  I’m happy to report that nearly all of our 75+ responses rejected the Size Zero definition of beauty. Users spoke instead of healthy bodies, confidence and self-esteem as the components of beauty. Summing it up perfectly in fact, is the Best Answer as chosen by voters, which says size zero is beautiful only to people who like stick insects! Well said!

The month of December is quickly flying by, and we will soon be saying goodbye to 2011. The Yahoo! Year In Review is out, and comes highly recommended as a ton of fun (even if we do say so ourselves!).  To wrap up the year with a little silliness, we invited our users to send in their predictions for big Bollywood weddings in 2012. Who will tie the knot in B-town next year? While Saifu and Kareena ran away with the most number of votes, it appears that many are still rooting for Salman and Katrina! A few others that topped the list were Soha Ali Khan and Kunal Khemu, Vidya Balan and Siddharth Roy Kapoor, and Ritesh and Genlia. Well, dear users, only 2012 will tell how accurate that third eye is, and we look forward to measuring the New Year against your forecasts!