Ambanis’ Antilla

To everyone’s surprise, price tagged at $ 2 Billion, Antilla (named after the mythical island) is in India and is World’s First Billion Dollar Home. Indeed, like its name, it houses stuff that surrounds myth!

Owner is India’s richest, Mukesh Ambani of Reliance fame whose net worth was 43 Billion in March of this year and was the 5th richest in the world.

The only remotely comparable high-rise property currently on the market is the 70 million dollar triplex penthouse at the Pierre Hotel in New York, designed to resemble a French chateau, and climbing 525 feet in the air.

When the Ambani residence is finished in January, completing four years of design and construction, it will be 27 story and 550 feet high (height which normally houses 60 floors) with 400,000 square feet of interior space. Click on the picture to see the video.

However, all of this has not been without its share of controversies. Antilla is being built on land sold to Ambanis’ to be used as orphanage by Waqf Board.The land measuring 11793 sq yards was sold in 2004 by the trust for a charitable purpose of looking after the destitutes and orphan children belonging to the Khoja Mohammedan community. The land was given to the Maharashtra State Board of Waqf by Jivagi Raje Scindia in 1957. The MoU was signed with four companies namely Antillia Commercials, Saphire Realtors, Rockline Constructions and Baun Foundation trust.

The Waqf Board has told the Supreme Court that it sold the property thinking it was to be used for an orphanage and that commercial buildings are not allowed on Waqf land. Property having a market value of Rs 400 crore was sold only for Rs 21.05 cr to M/s Antillia Commercial, a company of Reliance group of Industries. Rs 16 crores were also paid to Waqf Board for No Objection Certificate.

The Supreme Court on Friday decided not to intervene in the construction of the building on Waqf board land in Mumbai and has directed the matter back to the Bombay high court.

Critics have also said that showing off such extravagant wealth in a country rife with poverty is insensitive and ethically questionable. This is excessive and ostentatious given that more than 65 percent of Mumbai’s 18 million residents live in tenements.

Harsha Paints A Social Repsonse

NS Harsha is a gifted story teller who captures everyday life from India as seen through the lens of news and world events on his canvas through the medium of paints and color.

Miniature art form is not unknown in India. In fact, it has been used through the ages to depict life from courts of kings to humble settings of huts or villages. However, Harsha has picked up this technique to bring to the world his observations of Indian society which at times are whimsical and at times absurd, or even tragic or significant on the world scene.

Perhaps painting is just a medium to express the philosopher and the thinker in him. Perhaps brush is Harsha’s tool in an attempt to bring a social change, and awareness and curiosity that surrounds humanity.

The Shape Of The Beast

Eleven years after she won the Booker Prize for The God of Small Things, 14 conversations (2001-2008 ) with Roy on her social and political activism appear in a new book The Shape of the Beast.

Even before The God of Small Things hit the world of fame, this female Rushdie of India attracted lot of media attention when she criticised Shekhar Kapur’s film Bandit Queen, based on the life of Phoolan Devi, charging Kapur with exploiting Devi and misrepresenting both her life and its meaning. For sometime Roy was involved as film script writer as well. She even tried her hands at acting in films. Not many remember but Arundhati Roy played a village girl in the award-winning movie Massey Sahib.

(Click on the Image for a Video of an Interview with Arundhati Roy on The Shape of the Beast).

The Shape of the Beast finds Roy fulminating against the 2002 Godhra genocide, empathising with the adivasis of Dantewada in Chhattisgarh and venting against the military operations in Nagaland, Kashmir and Manipur.Through this book Roy has revealed both a personal and social journey.

BubbleBabble: Favorite Book

BubbleBabble: Maya

Mahatma Gandhi To Arrive At White House On November 5

Mahatma Gandhi never got an opportunity to visit USA and carry out a Peace Walk on its streets. But now he will.

Mahatma Gandhi has influenced leaders and people of America as much he did every where else. He kept special contact with people in USA through his letters to them. Gandhi was aware of his fan following amongst Americans. As he admitted in one of his letters to President Roosevelt in August of 1942-

Nizam of Hyderabad: Fifth on the Forbes ‘All Time Wealthiest’

Nizam of Hyderabad, is Fifth on Forbes ‘All Time Wealthiest’ list of 2008 with Net Worth: 210.8 Billion USD. Bill Gates is twentieth, Net Worth: 101.0 Billion USD. This is a list of historical figures who lived during the Industrial age, Information Age, Middle Ages, Ancient world and is solely based on net worth accumulated by inheritance or personal earnings. The estimated net worth of these people is calculated into inflation-adjusted 2007 dollars, from when historical figures were at the peak of their net worth

Last Nizam of Princely State of Hyderabad and Berar, Fath Jang Nawab Mir Osman Ali Khan Asaf Jah VII, was The Richest Man in the 1940s, having a fortune estimated at $2 billion. He ruled Hyderabad between 1911 and 1948 until it was made part of India as a result of Operation Polo launched by the Indian Government.

Nizam of Hyderabad even featured on the cover of TIME magazine. While rulers of other big states like Kashmir, Jodhpur Bikaner, Indore, and Bhopal were given the title of “His Excellency” (H.E.), the Nizam of Hyderabad alone had the title of “His Exalted Highness” (H.E.H.)

BubbleBabble: Long Lines

Ecstasy Of Life In Color

“In the silence of the night when I take a break from my work, and sit alone in the balcony, I see a young boy with a bag on his shoulder and a drawing board in his hand. Black clouds cover the sky while people take shelter from the rain, but the boy sits on the steps of the monument under an open sky - and the rain pours. The streets are full of crowds and everyone is running. He does not know for what? He is sitting on the huge iron pipes at Metro Railways, placed on the mud hills on the sides of Park Street. He sits for hours - from evening to midnight - with no one to ask for any explanation! Freedom?

BubbleBabble: Scary

Decathlon Of Indian Pilgrimages: Kailash Mansarovar

To the Hindus, the Himalayas are central to their cosmology. The peaks are the petals of the Golden Lotus which lord Vishnu created as a first step in the formation of the universe. On one of these peaks - Mount Kailash, sits Shiva in a state of perpetual meditation, generating the spiritual force that sustains the cosmos. Of the three worlds–patala (netherworld), prithvi (earth) and swargalok (heaven)–only Shiva lives on this planet and Mount Kailash is his abode.

BubbleBabble: Two-Faced Baby

Missing Daughters of India

Son preference in India is a well documented fact and its implications on skewed sex ratios, female feticide and high child morality rates is no news either. For over a century India has shown marked gap in the number is boys vs girls born each year. With technological advancement this gap is only increasing.

Indians worship the goddesses in temples but kill their daughters at home. Preference for boys over girls is driven by these factors:

• Sons are expected to provide emotional and social care to parents especially in their old age as well as are responsible for their lineage while daughters will go away to other families. It appears sons compensate for the lack of social security in India.
• Only if the son light the funeral pyre can the parents ascend to heaven.
• Sons add to family wealth and property, whereas daughters will drain that in the form of dowry for marriage.
• Sons will protect the parents whereas daughters have to be protected.

Prohibition Centric India Raises a Toast

Some Facts:

• India is the only country in the world where age bar for alcohol consumption is 25 years.
• It is illegal to directly or indirectly advertise alcoholic beverages in India.
• Hinduism declares alcohol consumption as one of the five heinous crimes and is comparable to murder and adultery. A drunkard is a dead body, say the scriptures.
• Broadcasting Bill of the country prohibits screening of smoking and drinking scenes and are categorized as adult.
• A prerequisite to become a congressman is to abstain from alcohol.

Mahatma Gandhi had canvassed total prohibition, and the Constitution of India endorsed, adopted, and imposed total prohibition in 1977. It lasted only two years leaving behind a few dry states like Mizoram, Manipur and Gujarat, and a couple of ‘dry’ holidays like Gandhi Jayanti and Independence day.

BubbleBabble: April Fool

What We Mean: A Pocket Guide

For the travelers to the mysterious land of Indian Culture we know how confusing it can be at times. It is an ancient culture rich with confusions and contradictions that we Indians learned to live with - do we have a choice. What is merely a daily matter to us, my foreign wonderer, for you it is a mystery. In the land with busy billions it is hard to find the key that would unlock the secret of the conundrum that is Indian culture. So we have put together a short phrasebook to help understand a few details about us. Here are some excerpts.

Brains Coming Back to Boost India

India has initiated reverse brain drain. Realizing how many scientists, doctors, engineers and other professionals they loose every year, Indian government is taking steps to lure them back to the country.

The scheme for NRIs, though still in infancy, has already netted at least 40 PHDs and MTechs working in academics or industry in countries like US, UK, Japan and Sweden.

“We are intensifying the drive. In 2007 alone, we received 150 applications from NRI scientists and engineers and finally picked up 22. The number of applicants is increasing, with the majority coming from US,” a top Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) scientist said.

What’s All The Racket About The Magic Racquet?

Leander Paes, who has saved India from several Davis Cup disasters and a medal hope at the Beijing Olympic Games in August, is going to play a miracle man who helps school kids in cartoon television series called The Magic Racquet.

Not much has been disclosed about the story line. Paes will play roughly his own age and will sport tennis gear. The story will revolve around a school with three to five central characters between the age group of 6 to 10. There are also plans to include other sporting stars as guests in a few episodes since the objective is to promote sports in general.

Dalrymple Lives in The Land of The Last Mughal

William Dalrymple’s love for India is not unknown. He has penned six books, of which five have embraced Indian life as their storyline and have been award winning. India has sewn itself into his life since long now with him spending a lot of time in New Delhi India apart from London and Edinburgh.

However, since last couple of years Jaunapur (a small village on the outskirts of Delhi) has been home to the the author and his family. Delhi has been the backdrop for many of Dalrymple’s books including The Last Mughal, a prizewinning account of the Indian uprising of 1857, and the fall of the Mughal dynasty. The book has sold more than 100,000 copies worldwide.

Hold Your Bullocks, Ferrari Is Coming

Ferrari has announced that they will soon open 6 showrooms in India by 2010. There are about 36 Ferrari cars plying in India which were sold through Ferrari’s Singapore hub. Ferrari has five models which range between $276,280 on the lower side to $ 363,120 at the upper end.

Ferrari recently - and rather bravely - sent out two reinforced 612 Scaglietti super cars to tour the sub-continent’s potholed highways to showcase the marque. The car will be driving across 57 cities of India in 64 days. About 13,000 km will be covered during this tour.

“We had conducted such tours in countries like China earlier. India is a popular choice for us since sports car fanatics are no less here as well,” says Gabriel Lalli from Ferrari.