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Is this Canopy Worth $5 Million?

2011-03-11T11:46:46Z

: Courtesy of Sotheby’s New York; ‘Pearl Canopy of Baroda’

When you think of maharajas, images of opulence and grandeur inevitably spring to mind. Few objects better exemplify this over-the-top lavishness than a 19th-century pearl-embroidered canopy from Baroda.

Commissioned by the Maharaja of Baroda, Khande Rao Gaekwar, in the mid-19th century, the circular canopy is studded with around 500,000 pearls. And not just any pearls, but fine Basra pearls, found naturally in the Persian Gulf. It doesn’t end there: The canopy is embellished with sapphires, emeralds, rubies and diamonds too. The gems are embroidered throughout the concentric floral patterns of the canopy, which measures around 1.2 meters in diameter.

The canopy will be auctioned March 24 at Sotheby’s in New York , where it’s expected to fetch up to $5 million. It’s being billed as one of the highlights of the auction, which focuses on Indian and Southeast Asian works of art.

But it’s not just the bejeweled canopy’s pearls and gems that are likely to make it appealing for buyers–it’s also the story behind it, said Mary Jo Otsea, head of Sotheby’s carpet department.

The canopy was originally part of a set which included four equally lavish carpets. The maharaja is said to have commissioned it from craftsmen trained in Mughal courts and apparently intended it to adorn Prophet Mohammad’s tomb in Medina. But the maharaja passed away before the suite could be completed and neither the canopy, nor the carpets, ever made it to Medina. It is likely the family members that outlived the maharaja felt less strongly about the Prophet than he did and the canopy, along with the carpets, stayed with the family.

It eventually followed Maharani Sita Devi, who was married to a descendant of the original maharaja, to Monaco in the 1940s. Dubbed by some as the Indian Wallis Simpson, the woman for whom King Edward VIII abdicated the throne, the maharani was known for her extravagant tastes. She sold the canopy and the only surviving carpet in the mid-1980s.

Although Baroda, now in present-day Gujarat, has a long tradition of gem-cutting and richly embroidered textiles, nothing as grand as the maharaja’s carpet and canopy is known to have survived to this day.

“Besides these two pieces, I don’t know anything like it,” said Ms. Otsea. Although textiles embellished with jewels and pearls are fairly common, she said no others have the entire surface covered like these do.

The other piece in the set, the “Pearl Carpet of Baroda,” sold for around $5.5 million in Doha in 2009.

Bits: Angry Birds and Its New Nest Egg

2011-03-11T22:53:46Z

Rovio said it raised a $42 million round of venture financing so that it could spin out its games and characters into a Disney-sized empire.

What They Said: Supreme Court on Euthanasia

2011-03-12T03:30:12Z

The Supreme Court’s ruling on Monday, which declined to allow a mercy killing for Aruna Shanbaug, a woman in a persistent vegetative state for almost 40 years, spurred many views this week. India Real Time presents a sample of editorials and opinion pieces on the issue.

In a Tuesday editorial titled “Opening the door,” The Times of India wrote : “Dismissing the euthanasia plea for Aruna Shanbaug, the Supreme Court provided guidelines distinguishing between passive and active euthanasia, revealing its ambivalence on the issue. Decisions will be case-by-case and made by high courts after hearing the family’s and a medical panel’s opinion.”

The paper said it might be time for Parliament to step in “to consider complexities and perhaps reconsider our founding principles in the process, for formulating a Bill on euthanasia…a considered decision by a person whose life hangs in the balance needs to be backed by medical and legal consent in cases where euthanasia is permitted.”

The paper urged that “building these principles into humane legislation is called for now.”

The Asian Age acknowledged the complexity of the case. “The subject is particularly difficult. It raises the question of religious or spiritual beliefs, but also enters the family realm,” it said.

But it was somewhat critical of the court’s judgment.

“Although the Supreme Court has said the contention of ‘passive’ euthanasia can be considered if medical experts can convince a high court that cure or even part-cure is an impossibility, it would appear the nation’s highest court has been unable to lay down a principle,” the paper said in an editorial Wednesday.

Writing in The Indian Express Wednesday, columnist Pratap Bhanu Mehta, appeared to hail the judgment. “The judgment is balanced and clearly argued. It honors existing Indian law that renders active euthanasia and suicide illegal,” he wrote. “But in any judgment on a difficult case, more questions will have to be resolved as the guidelines are implemented.”

The Hindustan Times on Wednesday also welcomed the judgment but said by “all counts, the raging debate on euthanasia will not die down even if the Indian Parliament is to pass a law on it tomorrow.”

“The order will now prise open the debate a little more: why can’t we have active euthanasia like The Netherlands? The oft repeated argument: the law can be misused by family members of a terminally ill patient,” the paper wrote. It asked in return: “But aren’t all laws open to misuse?”

“There have to be strict safeguards and a case-by-case decision taken on medical evidence with some more-than-minimum requirement to keep a patient alive. After all, not all those like Shanbaug have caregivers as dedicated as the KEM hospital staff,” the paper said, referring to the King Edward Memorial Hospital in Mumbai, where Ms. Shanbaug lives.

In another editorial the same day, The Hindu said: “In its judgment, the court has struck a fine balance—it has shown great sensitivity in handling the heart-rending case of Aruna Shanbaug and her wonderful ‘next friend,’ the KEM Hospital staff, taken a progressive and empathetic view about dying with dignity, but subjected it to exacting and rigorous procedures.”

If you have seen an interesting viewpoint on the euthanasia verdict, please share it with us in the Comments section.

How Sun Bought Apple Computer (Almost)

2011-02-26T15:49:00Z

Hugh Pickens writes "There was a time in the 1990s when Sun, at its wealthiest, was poised to buy Apple when it was at the lowest point in its storied history and now eWeek reports on how the deal for Sun to buy Apple fell through. 'Back in late 1995 early '96, when we were at our peak, we were literally hours away from buying Apple for about $5 to $6 a share,' says former Sun CEO Ed Zander. 'I don't know what we were going to do with it, but we were going to buy it.' Sun co-founder Scott McNealy adds that there was an investment banker on the Apple side who basically blocked it. 'He put so many terms into the deal that we couldn't afford to go do it.' Would there be iPhones, iPads and iPods on the market today if Sun Microsystems had been able to close a deal to buy out Apple in the mid-1990s? No, says McNealy. 'If we had bought Apple, there wouldn't have been iPods or iPads ... I'd have screwed that up.'"

Kris Gopalakrishnan Destiny’s Child

2011-02-26T06:51:29Z

Kris Gopalakrishnan talks about how sometimes success can be found on the path you didn’t initially choose Read more

The Habit of Being Honest

2011-02-17T18:12:09Z

Shared by KK Mehra
An excellent article by Atanu Dey

A few days ago, a Pakistani singer by the name of Rahat was caught smuggling around $130,000 out of India. It does not matter what the prescribed penalties are for such an act but the interior minister of Pakistan called up the Home Minister of India, P. Chidambaram and thanked him for facilitating Rahat’s release. Thanks to Mr Chidambaram’s intervention in the matter, it all ended well for the singer. But not for the country.

I could not help but marvel at that incident, and it brought to mind another incident. That one also involved the breaking of a law by an expatriate and a call from an official of the home country. That matter ended differently. In the difference in the outcomes of those two apparently trivial incidents lies the explanation for the enormous differences in the fortunes of two states.

It was 1994. An American expatriate in Singapore was convicted of vandalizing property. Not a big deal in the overall scheme of things — an 18-year old doing what teenagers sometimes do — but the law in Singapore was clear on the matter of vandalism. The sentence was four months in jail, S$3,500 in fines, and caning — six lashes on bare buttocks.

The US president, Bill Clinton, appealed for clemency. Two dozen senators wrote to the Singaporean government for mercy. But the sentence was carried out. Michael Fay was convicted of a crime and he paid for it, which was the law of the land. (The lashes were reduced to four from six — out of respect for the US President’s appeal.)

Singapore and India are entirely different states. Though both were neck and neck economically around 50 years ago, today Singapore is a prosperous state while India is pathetically poor. In global rankings of corruption in nations, India ranks as one of the most corrupt and Singapore one of the least corrupt.

In Singapore, the powerful and the powerless are all equal before the law. In India, depending on who you know, you can get away with murder — literally. In Singapore, they have rule by law, and in India we have rule by people.

Yesterday Indians had the most impressive demonstration of how deep-rooted corruption is unavoidable in a system where things are done according to the whims and fancies of those in power, and not according to rules. The prime minister of India deflected all blame away from himself for the many multi-billion dollar corruptions he has enabled by saying that he is helpless.

What that says is that in a tussle between the law of the land and powerful but corrupt people, the corrupt win and the law is powerless.

What Mr Singh demonstrated is not just his personal moral turpitude but also that the nation is morally bankrupt. The people know that the corrupt rule the roost and yet they tolerate it. Honest people with any sense of right and wrong would be outraged enough to force the legal system to punish the guilty. But Indians don’t care and the corrupt flourish while the country sinks deeper into unimaginable poverty.

Alfred North Whitehead once observed that “Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them.” If you ponder that for a bit, you see that to perform important operations without thinking about them requires learning, the acquisition of habits through repeated performance of that operation till it becomes second nature.

Honesty is a habit. Dishonesty is also a habit. There is a social compact which says that I recognize that you are dishonest, and you are at the top of the heap for now. It says that I aspire to someday get to your position and when I do, I will so exactly what you do and make my personal fortune. So I have to allow you to do what I hope to do myself when I get there. I cannot begrudge you what you do since I hope to there someday myself and do what you do.

We Indians tolerate corruption because we aspire to make our fortunes the same way if we ever get that chance.

There’s a cost, however. When you look into the eyes of the next malnourished child begging at a traffic light, you should know that it is your acceptance of gross corruption which enables that injustice. You make this state of affairs possible that the economy is so compromised that it accepts the starvation of children as a matter of fact.

We are all collectively responsible. We have not developed that habit of rule of law that makes a caring society possible. We have made it possible for the corrupt to flourish because we are ourselves corrupt.

What is it that distinguishes a person who is an alcoholic but knows that he is one, from another who is as much an alcoholic but steadfastly refuses to acknowledge his problem? The former has the possibility of seeking redemption but the latter will continue to sink further into oblivion. Who knows how long it will take for us to admit that we as a collective are dishonest and as a consequence of our collective dishonesty we are poor.

It is all karma, neh?

Related Posts:

The Ownership Society. October 2005.

The Tangled Web — Part 3. June 2007.

The Habit of Being Honest

2011-02-17T16:07:43Z

What that says is that in a tussle between the law of the land and powerful but corrupt people, the corrupt win and the law is powerless.

We Indians tolerate corruption because we aspire to make our fortunes the same way if we ever get that chance.

It is all karma, neh?

Related Posts:

The Ownership Society. October 2005.

The Tangled Web — Part 3. June 2007.

‘The Fresh Brew’ – Book Launch Video

2011-01-26T13:59:58Z

The fruition – An effort that took 9 months since being conceptualized and challenged the limits of my patience, perseverance and pursuit. Not to forget, it taught me invaluable lessons in ‘time management’!

Pleased to share the Launch Video for My first book – ‘The Fresh Brew’!

It is set to hit bookstores across India by the first week of February. You can pre-order the book on Flipkart.com!

>> JOIN THE PAGE ON FACEBOOK
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Filed under: Books, Me Tagged: Book launch, Creativity, Entrepreneurship, IIM, IIM Lucknow, Inspirational, New Book

Flipkart Has a new Logo, to soon expand into Consumer Electronics Space

2011-01-12T14:52:01Z

Flipkart has launched its brand new logo (plus brand colors) and while the company has moved from being an online book store to selling mobile phones as well as music, games etc , the big news is that Flipkart will very soon (as early as this week) announce the expansion into the entire range of consumer electronics – i.e laptop, TV etc etc.

Flipkart has seen consistent growth in the traffic and lately has started using adwords to drive traffic to the site. The early days of organic growth probably reached its maxima and Flipkart now wants to compete with eBay (s ) of the Indian online world (that pegs a question – Is there a ceiling to online book selling in India?).

What’s your take on Flipkart’s new brand colors, as well as the expansion into all things consumer electronics? Do you think that’s too much of dilution, or a logical step?

Note to Flipkart team – maybe they should change the favicon as well?

How Pixar Bosses Saved Their Employees from Layoffs | Geekosystem

2011-01-15T11:19:09Z

Shared by KK Mehra
How wrong can managers sometimes be!

Today, Pixar may be a multibillion dollar company seemingly capable of doing no wrong in the box office, but in its early days as Lucasfilm’s computer animation division, its future was far from certain. Indeed, in the mid-’80s, some at Lucasfilm doubted the value of computer animation, and the division faced deep layoffs. Then, its two heads, Alvy Ray Smith and Ed Catmull, saved it in a positively Pixaresque way.

The Harvard Business Review recently spoke to 25+ year Pixar vet Craig Good, who recounted the remarkable story:

[Lucasfilm president Doug] Norby was pressing Catmull and Smith to do some fairly deep layoffs. The two couldn’t bring themselves to do it. Instead, Catmull tried to make a financial case for keeping his group intact, arguing that layoffs would only reduce the value of a unit that Lucasfilm could profitably sell … But Norby was unmoved. As Craig tells it: “He was pestering Ed and Alvy for a list of names from the Computer Division to lay off, and Ed and Alvy kept blowing him off. Finally came the order: You will be in my office tomorrow morning at 9:00 with a list of names.”

So what did these two bosses do? “They showed up in his office at 9:00 and plunked down a list,” Craig told me. “It had two names on it: Ed Catmull and Alvy Ray Smith.”

The gutsy move worked, and not a single employee of what would soon become Pixar was fired. Not long afterwards, Lucasfilm spun Pixar off as its own company under Catmull’s and Smith’s leadership, selling it to Steve Jobs for $5 million; two decades later, Disney would buy it for $7.4 billion.

Related: Dealers of Lightning has the background on Smith’s formative experience hanging around Xerox PARC in the early ’70s, where he got to play with pioneering graphics program SuperPaint and became convinced of computers’ importance in the future of visual art.

(Harvard Business Review via The Disney Blog. Title photo via Jim Hill Media, copyright Triad Publishing; left, Ed Catmull, right, Alvy Ray Smith)

How Pixar Bosses Saved Their Employees from Layoffs | Geekosystem

2011-01-15T11:18:47Z

The Harvard Business Review recently spoke to 25+ year Pixar vet Craig Good, who recounted the remarkable story:

[Lucasfilm president Doug] Norby was pressing Catmull and Smith to do some fairly deep layoffs. The two couldn’t bring themselves to do it. Instead, Catmull tried to make a financial case for keeping his group intact, arguing that layoffs would only reduce the value of a unit that Lucasfilm could profitably sell … But Norby was unmoved. As Craig tells it: “He was pestering Ed and Alvy for a list of names from the Computer Division to lay off, and Ed and Alvy kept blowing him off. Finally came the order: You will be in my office tomorrow morning at 9:00 with a list of names.”

So what did these two bosses do? “They showed up in his office at 9:00 and plunked down a list,” Craig told me. “It had two names on it: Ed Catmull and Alvy Ray Smith.”

(Harvard Business Review via The Disney Blog. Title photo via Jim Hill Media, copyright Triad Publishing; left, Ed Catmull, right, Alvy Ray Smith)

A Resurgent Chrysler Says It Is Here to Stay

2011-01-11T20:43:38Z

Chrysler is in the midst of a new-product blitz that includes revamped models, as well as smaller models it will get from Fiat.

2010 in Review–The Year When Mobile Startups Flew ‘Kites’

2010-12-27T06:44:43Z

What about Kites? Well, Kites is a Bollywood movie that carried huge expectation, but went bust on the day 1 itself.

Flying Kites: In Love With Operator

Something similar happened with Mobile/VAS ecosystem in India and most importantly, with the Indian telecom industry.

Inflated Subscriber Numbers

500 million? 600 million?

Telecom operators reported skyrocketing number of 682 million subscribers (i.e. 58% penetration) in the month of September 2010.

Since spectrum allotment is done in proportion to subscriber base, telecom operators have enough incentive to inflate this number. September of 2010, TRAI shared the actual subscriber numbers which stands at ~70% of the reported numbers, i.e. 478 million.

2G Scam

The recent 2G scam is one of the worst scams in the country and while government demystifies the real story, expect lesser investment in this space.
Apart from the monetary loss (INR 1.76 L Crores), this has also brought shame and most importantly, eroded the confidence in India’s telecom story.

“When any industry comes under scanner, all the stakeholders also come under the scanner… It does affect credibility.” –[Quote by Spice Mobility/ASSOCHAM president, Dilip Modi].

Mobile Startups : Funding Anyone?

Big Became Bigger – that’s the sweet and short summary of Indian mobile VAS industry.

There hasn’t been a lot of action in funding space, as small players haven’t been able to go big and the good old story of 70:30 (Operator:VAS player revenue share) continues.

Aside, one of the most heartbreaking news for mobile startups was shutdown of Bharti Airtel Innovation fund (and lack of other funding stories in VAS/App space). And to add to this, some of the significant funding has happened from VCs outside India (which says a lot about Indian investors’ approach towards this ecosystem).

Does this mean that mobile startups need to go roaming (and can find a better match outside India, when it comes to funding)?

What about App Developers?

2010 witnessed the rise of mobile app stores in the country. Right from Aircel to Airtel – everybody has one, but no one is talking about monetization. Everybody is talking about their size, but no one is talking about the ecosystem or the economy of app stores.

There hardly are details of Operator’s roadmap regarding app stores and how are they going to work with app developers on the same. So far, it seems like a Scatter Gun Strategy.

The Good News

- Finally, 3G auction went through and we have already started seeing launch of 3G services. Content is the key here and expect app startups to rise to the occasion.

- Rise of Micromax. An inspiring ‘Made in India’ story, Micromax has certainly arrived and the company has been gaining ground owing to its foray into Android devices. The reason Micromax growth is so important for others to take note is not just because of the rising market share, but because of the fact that company has managed to find a product-to-market fit in an already crowded market (dominated by MNC brands).

To summarize, mobile VAS/APP ecosystem needs a fresh approach and most of the investors in this space aren’t the ones who will risk their $$s in one app, one vas offering. And that’s tricky for app/vas startups as it calls for dilution.

But the journey continues.

What’s your take on this ecosystem? What will 2011 mean for VAS/App startups?

[This is part of our series on 2010 Review where we bring the most significant coverage of digital industry in the Year 2010]

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Should India Accept World Bank Aid?

2010-12-22T11:36:15Z

The paradox of the rich-poor country strikes again. The World Bank has agreed to provide a $1.5 billion largely interest-free loan to India. However, accepting such a large loan from an international organization seems to contradict the oft-repeated claim that India is an emerging power.

Those other problems in Andhra Pradesh : P. Sainath

2010-12-21T06:44:41Z

When Chandrababu Naidu sits on a hunger fast for suffering farmers, you know something is afoot in Andhra Pradesh. Excessive rains have devastated the crops in the State. And losses have been enormous. But a farmer losing over Rs.15,000 on an acre of paddy will get less than Rs.2500 in compensation. And the nature of [...]

The many facets of greatness

2010-12-21T06:49:39Z

Sachin Tendulkar said it best when asked what his 50th Test century meant to him. He struggled at first to articulate himself but eventually conveyed the sense that it was just another number — a satisfying number no doubt, but just another. As he has said time and again, records matter little to him; what [...]

Pogoplug Maker Cloud Engines Raises $15 Million

2010-12-21T15:12:28Z

Cloud Engines, the company behind “personal cloud” Pogoplug, announced it has raised $15 million led by new investors Softbank Capital and Morgan Stanley Investment Partners along with existing investor Foundry Group. Cloud Engines said the new capital will go toward expanded global distribution of the Pogoplug service and devices.

Pogoplug is a small appliance that allows users to access their files remotely from their home storage. It also comes with a free online service that allows users to access and share their data online. It’s been popular with users who are able to turn any USB drive into an online storage locker.

Pogoplug has steadily added features over time including a recent update called Pogoplug Pro, a business version called Pogoplug Biz and web printing, enabling printers to connect to the Pogoplug and print from anywhere.

Related GigaOM Pro content (sub. req.):

Article: iPad Ads Engage Magazine Readers

2010-12-22T04:01:00Z

Video ads are readers’ favorite

Forbes India - Rajinikanth: Who Really Is the Super Star?

2010-12-22T11:23:08Z

Shared by KK Mehra
Rajni's profile in Forbes India. Very very inspiring.

'Rajni can plug the Wikileaks'

H ad he wanted, Raja Bahadur could have been a very famous man. But he chose to live in obscurity for something bigger. He guards his privacy so fiercely that it proves quite difficult to find his house in Chamrajpet, the jewel of Bangalore old town. After a spirited search, we zero in on a non-descript, three-storey building along a narrow, roller-coaster lane. The retired bus driver welcomes us and shows us where he lives — a tiny one-room portion with an attached bathroom. Once there, he offers that quintessential flavour of South Indian hospitality — filter coffee.

We can’t believe we are with superstar Rajinikanth’s best friend.

Just a few days earlier, at the height of the Endiran-Robot mania, the legendary actor had made a sudden visit to this house. Even as millions of fans fawned over his pictures and giant …

Arvind Singhal: Missing service in services economy

2010-12-19T06:33:08Z

Almost 58 per cent of India’s GDP in 2010 is already accounted for by the services sector. With a growth rate higher than that of the manufacturing and the agriculture sector, the share of the services sector will only increase. In the services economy, retail accounts for the largest share. Information technology and telecommunication, financial [...]