Where to start? guidance for necessary reads and starter tasks

[balkanizeyou]

Regarding the oscilloscope - do you have some local auction site like ebay in India? We do have one here in Poland and that's where I bought the cheapest analogue oscilloscope that was in working condition (it's a 40 years old Soviet oscilloscope) and it's absolutely enough for what I need. I recommend you to do that, too - you won't waste too much money, and after some time of using it you will know exactly what you need from a scope and what the one you have is missing.

[Kipper4]

Trade magazines and classifieds advert site. (Gumtree and preloved) are typical in the uk.
Also we have stores like cash converters, which is essentially a pawn shop.
Sorry if they don't have them in Calcutta. I'm just trying to think on my feet and give you some ideas.
Amateur radio shops? Ham radio clubs? Vehicular repair shops maybe.
There are computer based oscopes but I think they also require an audio interface to work I think. Another item that will probably not be cheap. Maybe you should check that out too.

I am lucky enough to have visited India and I loved it. An Inspiring nation of people.
Welcome

[g0Dy91]

Congrats Kipper on your visit to my country. Hope you visit again and this time do visit Kolkata (Calcutta). I guess you will love it.

On the oscilloscope front I'm getting a decent quality (atleast from pics) used Aplab 3702 for 10000inr i.e. 150usd. Is it a good deal?

[Kipper4]

Sounds like a fair deal.
How did you find it in the end?

[g0Dy91]

Sounds like a fair deal.
How did you find it in the end?

Local classifieds...[emoji1] [emoji1]

[Kipper4]

Trade magazines and classifieds advert site. (Gumtree and preloved) are typical in the uk.
Also we have stores like cash converters, which is essentially a pawn shop.
Sorry if they don't have them in Calcutta. I'm just trying to think on my feet and give you some ideas.
Amateur radio shops? Ham radio clubs? Vehicular repair shops maybe.
There are computer based oscopes but I think they also require an audio interface to work I think. Another item that will probably not be cheap. Maybe you should check that out too.

I am lucky enough to have visited India and I loved it. An Inspiring nation of people.
Welcome

This was worth  a punt then great news

[cnspedalbuilder]

You have gotten many useful suggestions, so I will just add a couple as someone who is relatively new (started as of March).

Aside from the obvious tools, the most important thing that I got was a good wire stripper that can handle 24 or 22 gauge wire. Mine is the "Hakko" brand, and here is a link https://www.amazon.com/Hakko-CSP-30-1-Stripper-Maximum-Capacity/dp/B00FZPHMUG/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1465797815&sr=8-11&keywords=amazon+wire+stripper

I'm thankful that I started with a kit with straightforward directions. Mine was from BYOC electronics, and it was so good to have those directions when I did not know anything about what was going on. I went from that to another kit company, and then another, and now I am trying to build on veroboard. But I would have easily quit if I had to learn soldering on veroboard!

[merlinb]

other brands are not available here we have local or chinese makes which are not up to the mark. There are good deals on aliexpress, ebay or toolboom etc but the shipping cost and customs duty almost doubles the price. And the official sites doesn't ship to India..... 

Most Chinese sellers on eBay will ship to India for the same price as they ship to the UK, won't they? I buy Chinese components all the time, and there is rarely anything wrong with them.

[Transmogrifox]

Any ways, after going through several project ideas and procrastinating for quite some time, I finally decided to  build a variable power supply as my starter project with digital displays n all. Now I know that there are numerous project blogs and schematics available online (some of them have really set the bar for hobby designers) but I really want to start and build it from scratch. Want to acquire the necessary design knowledge and concepts before jumping on the circuit building part. I believe that way I will gain a design intuition which will be helpful in the long run.
So, If anybody can point me to some recommended design reads or suggest some basic building block ideas, it would be really helpful.
Currently I'm just reading different articles and project texts from google and going through different designs available on popular EE sites.

The way I learn best is to look at existing designs and ask myself how it works.  As you get more familiar with basic circuit operation, then you can start asking yourself questions why one design chose to do it one way, and other designs did it another way.

If I was to suggest design reads, then these project blogs might be a good place to start.  Many of these projects come with an explanation of a design.

Even though it's not bench-top PS, a good read are RG Keen's (geofex)  "Technology of the... series.  He breaks down some designs and explains how they work and throws in some speculation about why certain design decisions were made.

This one looks like a good read -- maybe a bit beyond beginner level, but you will get to where you can understand it:
http://cds.linear.com/docs/en/lt-journal/LTJournal-V24N2-02-df-BenchSupply-Szolusha.pdf