Time magazine put the protester on the front page of its Person of the Year issue. 2011 was truly a year of revolutions and we sum up some of them in this podcast. This year also saw some astonishing inventions in the world of Physics. A few weeks ago some scientists claimed that some particle can indeed travel faster than light. A few days back physicists have finally seem to have put their finger on what is called the God particle. In India, such news is being pushed to the back pages of the papers as the front page generally is dedicated to the falling rupee and its effects to Indians in India and outside.

Kapil Sibal is not the first Indian politician to trend on Twitter, but perhaps the first one to trend with a dubious adjective (or noun, whatever), idiot. His lack of knowledge about how the internet works was evident when he asked companies like Facebook and Google to prescreen content which is posted by Indian users after he found a few morphed pictures of Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh which showed them in bad light. This year has seen quite a rew RIPs and Dev Anand and Indira Goswami get added to the list. In cricket, Sehwag scores a double century and if you are in Maharashtra, beware of those 500 rupee notes - they could just be fake!

Right from the days when trade was in barter format, the retail world has always been exciting. In the west, it has graduated from mom and pop stores to big box. The Indian government believed that India too should ape the movement, and has rejigged the Foreign Direct Investment rules in the retail sector. The opposition was not amused. In other corporate news, Cyrus Mistry will take over from Ratan Tata in December 2013. In the science field, the world's lightest material caught Adityas fancy and he gives us an overview.

Mayawati has follows a strict routine for ensuring to make it to the front pages of Indian newspapers at least once a week. This time she succeeds in convincing her party to pass a resolution demanding four different states. In Himachal Pradesh, more than 800 women have been reported missing in the past few years. The Unhate Benetton advertising campaign was the most talked about news story in business and in science, a startling discovery that one can travel faster than the speed of light just came to light.

Kingfisher is all over the place. Thats the news that everyone is feeding on especially in the business newspapers. Vijay Mallyas airline company has declared its 16 straight quarterly loss and things are not about to improve in the short term. In politics, Rahul Gandhi is now been slated to be the next man in charge as he contests elections in Uttar Pradesh. Government will soon be launching a Right to Education Act which promises education to every kid upto 14 years of age. In world news, floods in Thailand have set the country back. In cricket, South Africa and Australia slug it out in test matches and India is on a roll. At the time of the recording, Dravid, Laxman and Dhoni had scored centuries in the second test.

We start off this episode by talking a bit about the noise surrounding the Armed Forces Special Power Act which was established back in 1958. It turns out that Omar Abdullah wants it revoked in Jammu and Kashmir for it gives the army right to arrest and sometimes kill without the need of a warrant or necessary paperwork. In other news, Bhupen Hazarika and Joe Fraiser passed away this week and the mystery surrounding Michael Jackson's death was finally out when his personal physician was convicted of involuntary manslaughter.

Finally, after all these years, Formula One comes to India. Thankfully, the event went off without a glitch. Sebastian Vettel won it by a huge margin and saw Mayawati on the podium hand him the trophy. In other news, Metallica performed in Bangalore after its show was cancelled in Delhi due to a lapse in security. Meanwhile, the seventh billion baby was born. In cricket, three Pakistan players were convicted for spot fixing on a day when the Indian captain was given the title of Honorary Lt Colonel by the Indian army.

The 150th episode of Indicast is finally here but this time with a new voice. Abhishek is out on his bike in the Himachal Pradesh and so Akhilesh, who has been on Bizination a few times, joined me on for the 150th. God seems to be feeling lonely and has called in for company of 3 greats in quick succession. We talk about Tiger Pataudi, Steve Jobs and Jagjit Singh passing away, Murthys comment on quality of IIT students and the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize winners.

This is an attempt to bring to our listeners a happier and less politically inclined episode of Indicast. We will make a conscious effort to have topics from a wider interest areas. This episode covers the Sikkim earthquake, Modi ending his fast, the DMIC mega project, Indias loss in Tennis Davis Cup, BCCI banning the Kochi franchise from IPL and our regular digressions.

Media turned social on the internet only a few years ago, yet it did not take social media a lot of time to seep into our daily lives. Social networks like Facebook and Twitter only gave it an icing. Phone apps and other location based services have enabled people to interact amongst themselves and companies now have jumped in to not just market their products, but also to provide better customer service. In this podcast, Senior Asst Editor, Rohin Dharmakumar and Special Correspondent, N S Ramnath join us to talk about their cover story on social media.