Economist Gita Gopinath’s idea fuelling Francois Hollande’s revival strategy for France

Economist Gita Gopinath’s idea fuelling Francois Hollande’s revival strategy for France

Gopinath, a professor at Harvard University has pushed for tax intervention as a way forward for euro-area countries that cannot devalue their exchange rates.

When French President Francois Hollande unveiled a plan in November for a business tax credit and higher sales taxes as a way to revive the economy, he was implementing an idea championed by economist Gita Gopinath. 

Gopinath, 41, a professor at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has pushed for tax intervention as a way forward for euro-area countries that cannot devalue their exchange rates. "Fiscal devaluation" is helping France turn the corner during a period of extreme budget constraints, former Airbus chief Louis Gallois said in a business-competitiveness report Hollande commissioned. 

Gopinath's support for the theory took shape through her years teaching at Harvard and the University of Chicago and particularly as a PhD student at Princeton University under the guidance of Kenneth Rogoff, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas and Ben Bernanke, now chairman of the Federal Reserve. While her earlier work on current accounts and balance of payments garnered praise, it is her recent focus on the 17 euro nations that has national leaders paying action. 

"Gita is already a major star, at the top of her cohort in international macroeconomics and still rapidly growing as a scholar," Rogoff said in an e-mail. "Her empirical work on price rigidities is simply stunning and has had everyone going back to the drawing boards. Her theoretical work on international debt and default defines the state of the art in the field," he said, calling her strategies for the Eurozone to achieve internal devaluations "very influential". 

PARENTAL ADVICE 

Gopinath's path to becoming an economist and the first Indian woman to receive tenure at Harvard began almost by chance in the South Indian city of Mysore where she grew up. Like many Indian highschool students, she sought her parents' advice on what to study at university, and like many Indian parents of the time, they wanted her to land a respectable job as a government official in the Indian Administrative Services. 

The best way to achieve that, they were told by some friends in the services, was for Gopinath to get a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Delhi. "It was purely accidental," Gopinath said in a telephone interview. "Luckily, I found out fairly quickly that I had more of an academic leaning and little aptitude for administration." 

Her bachelor's in economics from Lady Shri Ram College for Women in 1992 was followed by a first master's at the Delhi School of Economics and a second in the US at the University of Washington in 1996. After receiving her doctorate at Princeton, she taught at the University of Chicago from 2001 to 2005 before moving to Harvard, where she was first invited as a visiting assistant professor for a semester in 2005. 

At the end of that stint, the university made her an offer to stay. Her PhD thesis, titled "Three Essays on International Capital Flows: A Search Theoretic Approach," was far ahead of its time, said Rogoff, who has an office a few doors from hers at Harvard and describes her as a "gifted and popular" teacher. She advocated fiscal devaluation for Europe's currency union in a 2011 paper she co-authored with her colleague Emmanuel Farhi and former student Oleg Itskhoki, an assistant professor at Princeton in New Jersey.

FORMAL ANALYSIS 

"Despite discussions in policy circles, there is little formal analysis of the equivalence between fiscal devaluations and exchange-rate devaluations," they wrote. "This paper is intended to bridge this gap." The paper examines a "remarkably simple alternative" that does not require countries to abandon the euro and devalue their currencies, Gopinath said.
LESS PRAISE 

She has less praise for policy makers in her country of birth. India's current-account deficit, at 5.4% of gross domestic product, is "worrying," Gopinath said, because it's driven by lower savings rates. The shortfall has triggered memories of India's fiscal crisis in 1990-91, when an overvalued currency led to a massive current-account deficit and a sharp decline in foreign reserves. 

More than two decades after the country airlifted gold reserves to pledge as collateral for a loan from IMF, India is grappling with its widest-ever shortfall, which has led to warnings of a downgrade to junk by ratings companies."The reason I'm an international economist now is partly because of the exposure I had back then," said Gopinath, who was in college in New Delhi at the time. "That was when I really got into the subject, and it stuck with me."

Source : BLOOMBERG ,ET

Harvard's newest India connection : Prof Gita Gopinath

Harvard's newest India connection : Prof Gita Gopinath 

Gita Gopinath's ground-breaking research is helping economists get a better understanding of the financial crisis in Greece and Iceland. No surprise really, considering that Professor Gopinath has recently been named tenured professor at Harvard University's high-brow economics department and she thus becomes the third woman ever and the first Indian after Nobel laureate Amartya Sen to receive such as outstanding honour. 

Professor Gopinath, who is only 38, works in the area of international macroeconomics and finance—areas that have become significant in light of the current financial crisis and the critical macroeconomic situation. 

"She has made fundamental contributions to the understanding of sovereign debt defaults, which is the current leg of the crisis in Europe. Her work also shows, at a very deep level, why many emerging markets tend to experience greater macroeconomic volatility than advanced economies and has significantly advanced understanding of the interaction between prices and interest rates," says Kenneth Rogoff, professor of economics and public policy at Harvard and former chief economist at the IMF. 

Professor Gopinath has some advice for Indian policy makers too and sees a major lesson from the Greece debt crisis for countries that have to work extra hard in preventing runaway budget deficits. "This should be a top concern for India. Its close to 7% projected budget deficit is on the high side. Even though this size of deficit is smaller than the US, the risk to the economy is larger for India. This is because from the international investors' perspective, India still is an emerging market, there is more uncertainty about how India will correct its deficits and what is even politically feasible, so the tolerance for Indian deficits is much lower," she says. 

Professor Gopinath, who completed her bachelors in economics from Delhi's Lady Shri Ram College and masters from Delhi School of Economics before moving to the US for a PhD, considers herself a product of the Indian education system. 

"When I was doing my bachelors from Delhi University, India experienced its first major external financing and currency crisis in 1990-91. This inspired me to pursue graduate work in economics and was the foundation for my interest in international finance," she says. 

Her father, TV Gopinath, a farmer and entrepreneur in Mysore, too, believes that increasingly, young Indians from small towns and villages will do well in academics and have the confidence to compete for top honours with their wealthier and savvier counterparts in cities. 

"My daughter went to school in Mysore, but was unfazed by the intense competition that she faced in Delhi. Later, Harvard University offered her an admission for PhD but didn't give her any financial aid. Because we couldn't afford to fund her, she decided to go to the University of Washington, Seattle, where she was offered funding. She left the university after two years, but was given an MS in economics in recognition of her extraordinary capabilities," says Mr Gopinath, a proud father. 

Today, Professor Gopinath herself sees mentorship from seniors as an important tool in breaking the gender glass ceiling at Ivy League universities in the US. There are very few women faculty at the top. At Harvard's economics department, for instance, there are only three tenured women out of around 40 tenured faculty. While this is very low, it is still a lot better than it was in the past. Prof Gopinath thinks that junior women could benefit from having senior women as mentors, so when that pool is very small this is just harder to accomplish. In academia, the whole tenure clock makes having a family difficult, so this is a bigger challenge for women. "I am very fortunate to have a hugely supportive husband in this matter." 

Overall she believes universities are now increasingly cognizant of the special challenges for women and explicit provisions are being made through family leave policy and stopping the tenure clock for a year when you have a child, policies that unfortunately were not in place in the not too distant past. "These are positive signs," she adds. 

Her husband and former classmate, Iqbal Dhaliwal, director of policy at the Jameel Poverty Action Lab at MIT's department of economics, acknowledges that her job has been far more stressful than his because 
she was on the tenure clock at Harvard. 

"The research they do is very intense with the added pressure of peer-review and the need to publish in top journals. I am not a professor, but work on the policy side of research at MIT. Both of us appreciate the importance of dual careers and accept the challenges that come with it. Since we really cherish and value the time that we get with each other and our little son after work, we try to be as efficient in the office as possible, and try to make sure that the time we have together is quality time," he says. 

In a recent interview published in the Harvard Crimson, the university's newspaper, Professor John Campbell, the chairman of Harvard's economics department praised Professor Gopinath's ability to move between theory and data analysis, and her strong skills as a teacher. 

"She has worked with some of our best PhD students," Professor Campbell said. "She is really becoming a professional leader in terms of training economists. She is the complete package." 

Her former students too endorse this view. "Promotions in top research universities are exclusively based on research and publication record and do not condition on the quality of teaching. Teaching, however, still takes a significant amount of time. Prof Gopinath was an important figure in graduate teaching in the economics department," says Oleg Itskhoki, who is now on the faculty at Princeton University's economics department. 

Source :  Ishani Duttagupta, ET Bureau 

India's six diamond kings: Six entrepreneurs minting money in Rs 70,000 crore industry

Meet India's six diamond kings: Nirav Modi, Mavji Bhai Patel, Mehul Choksi, Dharmesh Shah, Ashok Gajera & Russell Mehta

• 

(India’s diamond…)

India's diamond kings-the biggest players in the Rs 70,000 crore diamond industry-are relatively as obscure as their products are glittering. The six diamantaires profiled here are India's largest and the most aggressive. And a motley bunch too: from Nirav Modi, who started his creative journey by designing an earring for a friend, to Mavji Bhai Patel, who became India's biggest diamond exporter, vehemently shunning the idea of "individual success story"; from Mehul Choksi, who began his career in diamonds and jewellery as a teenager and conquered the peaks of branding, to Dharmesh Shah, who simply wants to double his turnover every five years.

From Ashok Gajera, who treats every diamond like a piece of canvas, to Russell Mehta, who believes trust is hard to build but even harder to maintain. They are entrepreneurs who are the real force of a local industry that's already a global major in the $160 billion fine jewellery. And each of these stories straddle the world's diamond hearts: from the dust lands of Surat to the Belgian city of Antwerp to New York City's glittering showrooms.

Nirav Modi

Firestar Diamonds

Born into an Antwerp-based diamantaire family, Nirav Modi was sent as a 19-year-old to Mumbai to learn the ropes from his maternal uncle Mehul Choksi, chairman of Gitanjali Gems. A decade in sales later, in 1999, Modi decided to step out from the shadow of his family.

"Being naive was my greatest strength," says Modi, whose siblings eventually joined the company. He had just one business mantra—find the large opportunity with a big moat around it.

Thus began the global search for the finest and rarest diamonds. Aided by his youngest brother Neeshal, Modi began buying yellow diamonds from Sierra Leone, white stones from Russia and Armenia, and pink diamonds from Argyle, the company's only Indian customer.

"We see diamonds as more than luxury. Like a house, they appreciate in value and are passed on to the next generation," says the 41-year-old. Around 2005, Firestar acquired a company in New York with a jewellery sales network. In 2007, it acquired Sandberg & Sikorski, a US company that had the concession to jewellery to shops in all defence bases. "We now sell jewellery worth $million annually to the largest armed force in the world,'' he says.

In 2009, when the global economy, and the luxury market, were in meltdown mode, Modi took the gamble of setting up seven manufacturing units in six countries, including Armenia and Russia, where he is the only Indian player.

The next niche opportunity arrived in 2010 when his Golconda Lotus necklace in a cut, patented by Modi, was auctioned at Christies's for Rs 16 crore. Since then Modi sends a few pieces to each of the 16 auctions held annually by Christie's and Sotheby in Geneva, Hong Kong and New York.

Designing a pair of earrings for a friend helped Modi discover the artist in him and 'Nirav Modi' the brand was born. Modi, who says he can't hold a pen, shares his ideas with an in-house design team who work on them till he is satisfied. "I wanted to be a music conductor as a child. This could be a manifestation of that same urge," says the maverick designer, who loves the poems of Robert Frost and has David Ogilvy's 'Confessions of an Ad Man,' and the Gita on his bedside.

What lies ahead? Two Nirav Modi signature stores in Delhi and Mumbai will be opened this year. "Ultimately everyday is a challenge because prices, people and lawa are all continuously changing. My biggest success has yet to come," says Modi.

Mavji Bhai Patel

Kiran Gems Pvt Ltd

In a family-driven industry where your name is your business card, managing director Mavji Bhai Patel is refreshingly free from tradition."My father was cotton farmer living in a village of 500 people in Gujarat's Bhavnagar district. We are first-generation entrepreneurs," he says. With some seed capital from his father, Mavji's eldest brother and chairman, Vallabhbhai S Patel, shifted to Mumbai and set up the company in 1985 where he was soon joined by Mavji, a fresh commerce graduate.

Despite such humble beginnings, Kiran Gems today is India's largest exporter of diamonds and jewellery. It is also the diamond industry's largest employer, with an army of 30,000 craftsmen handling over 5 million carats in rough diamonds each year.

How did an 'outsider' make it so big so fast? "The most important thing is family because the business is all about trust," he says, without the least trace of iony. Nine family members, including his five nephews, handle areas—raw material purchase, manufacturing, marketing and finance, and each has equal importance. "We have no ego factor. We have no individual success story," says Mavji Bhai, who spends his free time on family holidays and Bollywood films. His 18-year-old son is still studying. His daughter is married into another diamond business family.

His most precious memory in business is of the day Kiran Gems gotsightholder status from DeBeers. "It was fantastic,''he recalls. The company is among the largest suppliers of jewellery to stores in the USA, as well as Indian brands like Tanishq, he says. There are no immediate plans to enter the Indian retail market.

Mehul Choksi

Chairman and MD, Gitanjali Group

The 53-year old had a crystalclear goal even in his teens: to become the world's largest luxury player in branded jewellery. Mehul joined the business in 1975 and took over the reins of a Rs 50 crore firm in 1985 after his father Chinubhai Choksi died. Chinhubhai had laid the foundation of the company, which he named Gitanjali after his two daughter—ita and Anjali. "I was attending college during the day and was learning the tricks of the trade from my father in the evening," recounts Choksi.

Initially, trading in rough and polished diamonds formed the core business for Gitanjali, and it was considered one of the biggest exporters of raw diamonds worldwide. This led to Gitanjali entering the international jewellery arena and it gradually started expanding the business. Mehul, who loves yachting on weekends, realised that by selling diamonds as a commodity Gitanjai was not realising its full potential. "This triggered me to launch the Gili brand of jewellery some 18 years ago," says Mehul, who loves Chinese and Mexican food.

Today Gitanjali's product portfolio consists of several brands, including Gili, Nakshatra, Asmi, D'damas, Maya, Diya and Sangini; they are sold through over 4,000 points of sale in multiple retail formats.

Gitanjali enjoys direct access to the US retail market through 111 high-end stores under Samuel Jewelers Inc, acquired by the group in 2006. Popular brands retailed in the US include Love Universe, Passion Stone, Affiance, Lune Dargent and REVV. The company also acquired Italian brands like Valenete, Stefan Hafner, Nouvelle Bague, IO SI and Porrati.

Mehul has a medium-term target: "Within next five years, my target is to achieve a turnover of Rs 50,000 crore."

Dharmesh Shah

Joint MD & CFO, Asian Star Company

Asian Star Company started its journey in 1971 when three cousins Dinesh Shah, Arvind Shah and late Prabodh Shah floated a partnership firm for diamond processing; the compan had a small diamond processing unit in Surat.

The second generation of the Shahs took up the business in 1990. Dharmesh Shah is the joint MD and CFO and his brother Vipul Shah is the MD besides being the chairman of the Gem & Jewellery Export Promot Council. Dharmesh, who is a graduate from Bombay University, says: "Asian Star is now one of the biggest diamantaires. The year 2000 marked the launch of the jewellery manufacturing business of Asian Star."

Dharmesh took up the business when the turnover was around Rs 350 crore; In FY12, that figure stood at Rs 1,835 crore. "Our aim is to double turnover within next five years," he says.

Asian Star plans to consolidate its position in the core business of diamond processing, while exploring further in the jewellery manufacturing business. Asian Star is a B2B company and hence does not promote consumer brands. "But I can proudly aim that 'Asian Star ' is a renowned corporate brand within trade circles," says Dharmesh who loves to read and play cricket.

At 46, Dharmesh is hungry to acquire brands overseas. " As and when opportunity comes we will grab it," he says.

Ashok Gajera

Managing Diractor, Laxmi Diamond

Laxmi Diamond was started 40 years ago by Vasant Gajera, the elder brother of Ashok Gajera. While Vasant stays in Surat, Ashok is based in Mumbai and looks after the sales and marketing.

The company imports rough diamonds, processes and exports polished diamonds to US, Far East, Europe, the Middle East and South East Asia.

Ashok, who joined the company in 1986 after the opening of the firm's office in Mumbai, emphasises that sourcing is the most important thing to become a major player in the industry. It gets regular supplies from mining companies like Rio Tinto, BHP and Diavik Diamond Mines.

"Every piece of diamond is a canvas and cutting diamond or making jewellery is a work of art. Our method of quality control ensures less than 0.25% of rejection rate," says Ashok. The legendary diamond cutter Sir Gabi Tolkowsky is the training consultant of Laxmi Diamond and has trained and sharpened the skills of its workers The company sells diamond jewellery under the brand name Cygnus and has 180 outlets in India. "Every year we have plans to increase the numbers by 10-15%," says Ashok. However, the company is cagey about sharing numbers.

Russell Mehta

Rosy Blue (India)

Belgium-based Rosy Blue, flagship of the Mehta family, is one of the world's largest diamond jewellery companies and owns the retail brand Orra. The privately-owned company began trading as B Arunkumar more than 50 years ago. In 1973, with Dilip Mehta at the helm, Rosy Blue Antwerp began expanding into global distribution and sourcing of diamonds. "The company and the business were started by my father and his maternal uncle in 1960 and were growing in the '80s when I joined," says Russell Mehta, chief operating officer of Rosy Blue India.

Today Rosy Blue consists of two legal entities, one operating in India, Rosy Blue (India), and the other active in the rest of the world, Rosy Blue investments Sarl. All the companies operating within these entities share the Rosy Blue trade name.

"Rosy Blue is a 'family corporation'. We have evolved differently from most diamond companies, which are managed by the core family. We have trained and groomed professionals to take over key job of trading diamonds which I don't think many other companies have done. This allowed us to scale up," says Mehta. Even so, family ties remain crucial. "All diamond trading happens on oral promises and without any written contracts or documents. Also, large part of trading is on 'clean credits'. Hence the family's reputation, roots and heritage are quite important in trading diamonds," says Mehta.

Inter Gold is the jewellery manufacturing arm of Rosy Blue India, and is one of the largest diamond jewellery companies in the world. Orra, Rosy Blue India's retail chain, has over 30 shops. In 2011, Rosy Blue India became a member of the Responsible Jewellery Council that has been established to promote responsible ethical, social and environmental practices, throughout the diamond and/or gold jewellery supply chain, from mine to retail.

Mehta believes the reputation and the trust Rosy Blue and the promoters enjoy among suppliers (diamond miners) and customers (retailers across the world) are its biggest success. "The real challenge is to maintain it," he says.

Source : 

Nidhi Nath Srinivas & Sutanuka Ghosal, ET Bureau

Ghaziabad Firm Samtel Display Systems Set to Fly with Rafale

"AFTER the Rafale deal is inked, our total bids with different players across the world will easily cross Rs 10,000 crore," said Puneet Kaura emphatically. Kaura is the executive director of Samtel Display Systems, aGhaziabad based company, which makes cockpit displaysfor fighter and commercial aircrafts.

Though the modalities of the deal are yet to be worked out, the multibillion-dollar deal will turn out to be an important cog for the company and the way India is seen globally.

"The 126 aircraft MMRCA deal standing at $10.4 billion is the biggest defense deal in the history of the country. Samtel will be supplying its cockpit displays to Dassault, makers of the French Rafale," informed Kaura. The exe director explained, "Dassault has stakes in Thales which is also a French company. Samtel-Thales Joint Venture will be supplying the cockpit displays to Dassault."

He added, "The deal falls under a Buy & Make category, one of the defense procurement procedures (DPP) designed by the ministry of defense (MOD) where the company that wins the bid will have to source manufacturing to an Indian company to the tune of 50 per cent of the bid value. And in that case, over 5 billion dollars is what the Indian companies will earn from the deal."

35 per cent of the entire aircraft constitutes avionics or aircraft electronics, which is being catered to by the Samtel-Thales JV. So a sizeable amount is expected to land in Samtel's kitty. However the products that Samtel will be manufacturing at its Ghaziabad unit are to be negotiated with Thales.

The aircrafts will be loaded with Infra Red Search and Track (IRST) System, a highly advanced technology that is capable of detecting an enemy aircraft even at a distance of 80 kilometers. Unlike the earlier technologies, IRST is stealthy, as it emits nothing. Airborne radars installed in the aircrafts emit elect6ronic beams and thus give its position to the enemy.

Mr Kaura said, "Thales has the technology but the production will be done in our facility." Thales is the sixth largest defense equipment manufacturer in the world with an estimated value of Rs 80,000 crore.

Last year only, Thales signed a contract worth 1.47 billion euro (Rs 9600 crore) with the MOD for the upgradation of 51 Mirage 2000 aircrafts. Samtel has stakes in this deal too. The company is spreading its wings across continents as it is in talk with world's largest aerospace company Boeing of US and also with French Company Airbus.

The Rs 12 billion company is also working closely with world's largest cockpit manufacturers Honeywell. The US based $36 billion company is seeking the services of Samtel for commercial aircrafts for its global market operations. Pritam Bhavnani, Country head, Honeywell India was all praise for the company.

"The unit is fully integrated with sound facilities. It has shown remarkable capabilities in CRT displays." Recalling his association with the company, Mr Bhavnani said, "Honeywell's association with Samtel started with a series of displays. We have recently got cost estimates of some more instruments."

The company, which started in 1973 with the manufacturing of coloured picture tubes, has graduated to something as niche as avionics. It all started with the acquisition of a German arm of Thales based in Ulm. It was manufacturing medical displays and military displays.

We transferred the medical display system to India and concentrated on manufacturing helmet-mounted displays where the pilot can see the display on the visor mounted on the helmet.

Samtel also made a joint venture with Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) in 2006 and has supplied multifunctional displays (MFD) for Sukhoi Su-30MKI aircrafts inducted by the Indian Airforce. The displays have been instrumental in providing vital flight parameters and digital terrain maps. "Samtel owns the technology used for manufacturing these displays," Kaura pointed. Earlier HAL imported these displays from France.

He said that the displays have been subjected to many hundred tests to withstand extremes in temperature, altitude, explosion, vibration and brightness. "All the displays have been made using the ruggedization technology which we jointly developed with the DRDO. With some advancements, now we are using this technology in displays that we make for the HAL."

Sameer Dudani, CEO of Samtel-HAL JV mentioned about the some fundamental problems with the earlier procurements. "If there was a problem with the displays, it had to be flown to Lucknow and then to France. It only returned after 8-9 months. To get fresh displays the order had to be placed one year in advance."

He added, "With Samtel-HAL association, the turn around time has decreased drastically to mere 6-7 days. While the fresh orders have to be placed just three months in advance."

While Puneet was categorical about Samtel's global ambitions, the Bentley College (US) graduate forsees India as a global hub for the supply of these cockpits. He was also happy about the participation of a few private companies in the country in the area of defense. Vishakhapatnam based Flash Forge and Aurora Integrated Systems based in Banglore are some companies who have been active participants in the area of defense. The former has supplied critical valves to a fleet of six Scorpene-class submarines and the latter manufactures surveillance drones.

Sharing Kaura's optimism Mr Dudani said, "Private players like Samtel have great opportunity to make it big because the area is niche and not many players are into it. The government is more keen now to give chance to private players, which is also important from the strategic point of view because the technology remains with us and we become self-reliant."

However he acknowledged that, "Players need to have deep pockets and the Government needs to have a fresh look into the offset clause because the policies are unclear and ambiguous."

Source : ET Bureau

Top 10 High Profile Weddings In India

Top 10 High Profile Weddings In India

The business elite of India believe in marrying among themselves – which is to say, to sons and daughters of other huge industrial and business conglomerates of the nation.

We bring you the top 10 most memorable high profile Indian weddings from recent times.

1. Abhinav Jhunjhunwala and Prerna Sarda

Image Credit: BCCL

It was a star-studded wedding for son of Reliance Anil Dhirubai Ambani Group’s vice-chairman Amitabh Jhunjhunwala, Abhinav to Kolkata jute baron Ghanshyam Sarda’s daughter Prerna on January 28th last year. Singapore-based Abhinav, who is a Berkeley graduate and NYU pass-out Prerna, who is working in her dad’s business had the likes of Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Abhishek Bachchan and Farhan Akhtar at their wedding.

2. Amit Bhatia and Vanisha Mittal

Image Credit: BCCL

What do you get when you marry the daughter of India’s richest man to another big UK-based businessman? Well, an engagement ceremony at the Palace of Versailles and a wedding at the 17th century Chateau Vaux le Vicomte, with performances by Kylie Minogue amidst fireworks at the Eiffel Tower. Vanisha, daughter of steel baron Lakshmi Mittal married Amit Bhatia, chairman of UK’s largest independent supplier of cement, Hope Construction Materials, in 2004.

3. Nikhil Nanda and Shweta Bachchan

Image Credit: BCCL

Speaking of top profile weddings, the betrothal of Escorts Group JMD, Nikhil Nanda (grandson of Raj Kapoor) and Big B’s daughter Shweta Bachchan also made huge news in 1997. The wedding was a private affair, with a grand reception later. And after son Abhishek married former beauty queen Aishwarya Rai, the Bachchans are now a complete family.

4. Rohan Murthy and Lakshmi Venu

Image Credit: BCCL

Down south, Rohan Murthy – son of Infosys’ boss Narayana Murthy fell in love and won the hand of Lakshmi Venu, who happens to be the daughter of TVS Motors chairman and managing director Venu Srinivasan. Amidst Kanjivaram sarees and classical music, the duo got married in an elegant affair set to a predominantly South Indian theme in 2011.

5. Alkesh Tandon and Raakhe Kapoor

Image Credit: BCCL

Recently last year, Dubai-based entrepreneur Alkesh Tandon married Raakhe, daughter of YES Bank boss Rana Kapoor. Tandon, who runs an international boutique design house, is also related to Lakshmi Mittal himself. No surprise then it was a grand affair. The engagement was at ITC Maurya Sheraton and the wedding ceremony had bigwigs as guests such as Salman Khurshid, P Chidambaram and Vinod Khanna.

6. Saurabh Dhoot and Radhika Singhal

Image Credit: BCCL

This wedding saw performances by Katrina Kaif, Bipasha Basu and Malaika Arora. Need we say more on the level of grandeur of this event? Son of Pradeep Dhoot of Videocon Industries, Saurabh and daughter of Bhushan Power and steel chairman Sanjay Singhal, Radhika got married in a proverbial big fat Indian wedding in 2010.

7. Rajeev Shukla and Anurradha Prasad

Image Credit: BCCL

One doesn’t need a rich daddy to have a high profile wedding, if both personalities themselves are high profile personalities. Case in point is the wedding of IPL chairman Rajeev Shukla and MD of BAG Films, Anurradha Prasad. A powerful amalgamation of media, politics and sports – this duo together would be a force to contend with.

8. Sushanto Roy and Richa Ahuja

Image Credit: BCCL

With 11,000 invitees, the wedding ceremony of this pair was one of the biggest in recent history. Father Subrata Roy, chief of Sahara pulled out all stops for the grand affair that was held at the Sahara township in Lucknow. The lucky bride was Richa Ahuja, daughter of Lucknow-based Aamesh Ahuja. Sushanto’s brother got married immediately four days after him – and papa Roy carried it off with equal splendor.

9. Vivek Biyani and Tanushri Dhoot

Image Credit: BCCL

Another kid from the Videocon family, Tanushri Dhoot made a high profile wedding when she married Vivek Biyani, the nephew of Kishore Biyani of Big Bazaar and Future Group. This wedding, which was held in 2011, saw a host of bigshots from the world of politics, business, cinema and sports as guests.

10. Sachin Pilot and Sara Abdullah

Image Credit: BCCL

Love or ambition – the reasons for these big fat Indian weddings are many, yet whenever they do happen, there are huge power shifts in the upper echelons of the Indian society.

Source : www.mensxp.com

Kanika Dewan: Meet the diva who designed floors of IGI's T3 terminal

Kanika Dewan: Meet the diva who designed floors of IGI's T3 terminal

With exotic marble and granite from her family-owned mines in Bahrain, Kanika Dewan, an NRI, now wants to make it big in the land of jugaad.

At 1 am, the day Terminal 3 was to be inaugurated by Congress leader Sonia Gandhi in Delhi two years ago,Kanika Dewan was trying to spot tiles that were out of place at the brand-new airport.

The 33-year-old designer's 800-strong army of engineers and workers had finished the flooring comfortably ahead of time, but she was still worried about pieces that might have not fit to perfection.

A senior executive from GMR, the contractor for the airport project, came to know about Dewan's midnight prowl and promptly arrived to whisk her away and make way for security personnel. The airport terminal was a showcase piece in terms of standards in design and, after it was opened, international tourists walked in to a spanking new airport that sought to redefine India.

Floor Power

Four years before that, Dewan — whose family is based in West Asia — was on a visit to New Delhi and happened to flip through a newspaper that carried an article about the proposed makeover of the international airport in the city.

The entrepreneur decided that she wanted to be associated with the project and soon her company won a bid. "This was a project that would change the way people looked at India and I wanted to be part of it," she says.

Dewan's family-owned business, Bramco, headquartered in Bahrain, carried out the floor work for the airport. More than 130,000 sq m of tiles were laid before the deadline of 11 months was over. TheCommonwealth Games were to be hosted and work was carried out at a frantic pace.

After the project for the Delhi International Airport,Bramco is now working on a similar project with the Mumbai International Airport. The company has also done the flooring for a Leela Hotels project in Delhi.

No Stone Unturned

Dewan moved to Bahrain after her father, then an executive with a Kolkata-based company, went to West Asia to set up limestone quarrying. The company later got into mining and has operations across the region.

For somebody who has contributed to designing mansions of several billionaires, apart from the work at the airports, Dewan does not boast of a design education. After majoring in finance at the Wharton business school, instead of continuing withinvestment banking, in which she had dabbled for a while, Dewan decided to become an interior designer.

For Dewan, it was not just about following her creative aspirations. She also wanted to build on a sound business idea. Bramco owns mines in Bahrain and Dubai from where rocks are polished into marbles and granite. With these mines at her disposal, apart from a few in Italy and Brazil, Dewan had access to exotic stones such as the Blue Macuba and the Blue Bahia.

A senior executive with L&T, the contractor for the Delhi terminal, says the fact that Bramco had access to raw materials from its own mines ensured that there was no supply crunch at any point of time. He adds that the hallmark of the work done by Bramco was its sophistication.

Bramco is now proving to be the base of Dewan's new business. After her Wharton days, she decided to start a vertically integrated design firm that would capitalise on the exclusive availability of exotic marbles and granite from Bramco's mines.

After she showcased her designs for an apartment at an exhibition in New York, her company Ka Design Atelier was invited to plan the flooring of several mansions. Subsequently, the company entered theGuinness World Records for executing the largest mosaic portrait in the world, using only handmade marble tiles.

The 8x5 m portrait of Sultan Qaboos bin Said, the ruler of Oman, presented to him in November 2010 on the 40th anniversary of his accession to power, was created out of stones sourced from the mountains and seabeds of Oman. The portrait was made using 128,274 individual pieces of 90 different shades of marble.

Designs on India

"In the US, I first worked on residential projects and then switched to commercial properties. But in India I am doing the reverse," says Dewan. Ka Atelier is now setting up a design studio in Defence Colony in south Delhi which is expected to open in four months.

The company plans to showcase its floor designs, wall embellishments and exclusive bathroom designs at the studio. These have been designed using the marbles procured from Bramco mines. "Each of our concepts is made exclusively for the client. We will not replicate any design and therefore they are high-end," she says.

Dewan says her father was rather sceptical of her move back to India and her ability to handle bribe-seekers. "Initially, I did run into problems at the site but then we reported such people and each one was dealt with," she says. Getting payment on time too has become an issue.

"In the US, if a firm is not paid on time, it will threaten to sue the buyer; but in India if payments are delayed, it is the buyer who says 'why don't you go to court?'"

Having burnt her fingers with some of the early projects, Dewan has decided to revisit her contract. "Now I insist on advance payments and I put my foot down on ad hoc deductions," she says. "I have been in Delhi for four years and I am finally beginning to understand why they use that word 'jugaad' in this city," she says, referring to the capital's obsession with sly, backdoor solutions to everyday problems.

Source : K P NARAYANA KUMAR,ET BUREAU 

Management Mythos: Jealousy made its presence felt in the Mahabharata; organisations are no different

Management Mythos: Jealousy made its presence felt in the Mahabharata; organisations are no different

At the core of the problem is the issue of power.

I was friends with a colleague who worked at the same level. Last year, I was promoted and in the new scheme of things he had to report to me. From then on I started witnessing a change in his behaviour towards me and now things have become so bad that he is more of an enemy. I got the job because I deserved it but I lost a friend, and more over, I don't understand the hostility. No matter how much I try and talk to him nothing changes. What do I do? I don't like to give up on people.

This little detail from the Mahabharat is rarely told in modern retellings. When Pandu learned that his blind brother Dhritarashtra's wife, Gandhari, was pregnant, he wept as he could not make his own two wives pregnant. Then he learned how his first wife Kunti could bear children by calling upon the gods. On his behest, Kunti called three gods and had three sons by them. Pandu then requested her to share her power with his second wife, Madri, so that even she could also bear children. When this was done, Madri invoked twin gods and had two sons with just a single invocation. "Give the power again," Pandu told Kunti but Kunti refused. What if Madri cleverly invoked another set of twin gods, or maybe triplet gods, and ended up having more sons, then she would give Pandu more children, besides being the more favored wife. Kunti would not allow that. When news reached Gandhari that while she was pregnant, Pandu had become a father, she got so upset that she beat her belly with an iron bar to force out the child. This is what jealousy does to us, though we all pretend to be noble.

At the core of the problem is the issue of power. As long as you and your friend were in the same level, the organization saw you both equally. As soon as you were elevated, the organization valued you more. This made your friend feel less powerful. He resents it. The resentment is amplified if in his own evaluation he is as good as you. The organization then, in his view, is the parent that has preferred you over him. He feels like the wronged child. In his eyes, you are the favored child, one who was picked up by the parent, while he is forgotten and rejected. This manifests in hostility.

Modern practices assume that humans are rational. That rational approach, makes us feel that we can tackle this problem rationally. Unfortunately humans are not and never have been rational. We are full of emotions. We want to feel valued and powerful. That is why we constantly compare.

That is why we constantly compete. You may feel you deserve your promotion. But your colleague does not think so. In his worldview, he is right, and everyone else is wrong. Even if you deserve the promotion, he wonders why he is not as favored as you. And this adds to his sense of rejection.Every action in life has a consequence. Your 'good deeds' have earned you a promotion and cost you a relationship. You can reason with your friend but he may not want to reason with you. If he agrees to your rationality, you will become even more powerful, that only fuels his resentment. So he will reject you and try to dominate you by being hostile to you (he seems to be winning this battle).

You need to perhaps focus on the job and use professional parameters to ensure he does what he is supposed to do for the organization and the team. You need to perhaps approach him with a little bit more empathy rather than outrage. Allow him to be angry. He needs to grow up; otherwise he will end up a bitter frustrated man.

Source : DEVDUTT PATTANAIK