Canon S2IS was one ammazing camera. I had it till about 5 months ago before I graduated to DSLR (again from canon). I shot the moon and the pics are brilliant. You also have S3IS and S5IS in the same line. Here are a few pics from that cam.. *www.slide.com/r/lvXyik3y2z_-u-fevyyqxHMu988YSWL-?map=2&cy=un
Given your budget of 15k, SX110 might be out of your consideration.
Lastly, if you think you are a geek, go for Canon. Reason.. you can tinker with its OS(WITHOUT actually disturbing anything in cam, so your warranty is intact), and make the camera do way more than what it is designed for.. or for that matter any other camera can even think of.. for example -
- make it motion sensitive (toss a ball in front of cam and let the cam take pic on its own)
-take pics of lightnings (ever tried it?? )
- take pics in RAW mode (not really important if you are a casual photographer though)
check this out.. *chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK
Its great fun.
Finally, take help of *www.dpreview.com in general, and *www.dpreview.com/reviews/Q408budgetgroup/to decide. Good Luck. And let us know which one did you pick.
PS :- A brand name is, in no way, a guarantee that thier cameras are good or bad. Just like nVidia/AMD/Intel at times come out with crappy hardware/firmware/drivers etc.. the cam manufacturers are no different. So, dont say Nikon (or some other brand) is bad.