I bought this camera from US for $245.00 (online buying). At the current conversation rate, it would be close to Rs. 11, 000. Before buying, as usual, I did a lot of research and found no match for it at this price. The two USPs of this camera are:
10x Optical Zoom
Image Stabilizer
3.1 MP
No other camera will give 10x zoom at this price. The higher end of this camera (the new one - S2 IS) has 12x optical and 5.0 MP . But it also comes at a cost. For every time use and amateurs, S1 IS is the best buy
Picture quality is great and zoom works fantastic. The handling is also very comfortable. The camera comes with 32MB Memory card. You can buy more memory (256MB, 512 MB) separately.
The only drawback of this camera is the Battery usage. It uses 4 AA batteries. To save on that, I would suggest that you also buy a re-chargeable battery set (a good one would cost around Rs. 1500).