Shares in Indian conglomerate Adani slid as Indian opposition politicians demanded action after both Financial Times and Guardian reported revelations about family-linked shareholders in the company’s stock and exposed opaque offshore structures that shielded some of the group’s largest shareholders and their connections to the Adani family. The report spotlighted relationship between Gautam Adani, the industrial group’s founder and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a febrile atmosphere before the election early next year. The value of the group’s 10 listed groups fell by £3.31bn or 3.3  per cent, yesterday. India is hosting G20 Summit of leading economies on September … Continue reading Who’s hedging whom

Mohamed al Fayed, Egyptian self-made billionaire and former Harrods and Fulham FC owner dies aged 94. He died after the car crash in Paris that killed his eldest son, Dodi and Diana, Princes of  Wales on 31 August 1997. Al Fayed, son of a school teacher, was born in Alexandra. He launched his own shipping business, before becoming adviser to the Sultan of Brunei in 1966. He arrived in the UK in the 1970s and joined the board of mining conglomerate Lonrho in 1975 which lasted nine months. In 1979, with his brother Ali he bought the Paris Ritz Hotel. … Continue reading Al Fayed dies aged 94

A new epic of love, faith, and medicine, set in Kerala and following three generations. In The Covenant of Water, the physician-writer Abraham Verghese’s riveting  epic  opens with a mother and her 12-year-old daughter crying. 1900 in Travancore, south India’s Malabar Coast, the frightened girl is to marry a man who is 40 and a widower. The family is part of a Christian community that traces itself to the time of the apostles, but times are shifting, and the matriarch of this family, known as Big Ammachi, will witness unthinkable changes at home and at large over the span of … Continue reading Evocation of a lost India

European Union is often seen as a cosmopolitan rejection of violent nationalism, although Europe has a long, problematic history in medieval times. Europe was synonymous with Christianity: and in the modern era, it became associated with whiteness. Kundnani, a European Eurowhiteness exposes the EU as a vehicle for imperial amnesia. Kundnani, a European insider, an expert on Germany,, who has worked with Chatam House, and the European Council on Foreign Relations, wrote this book to “stimulate debate.” The ethnic cultural component of the contemporary European project wsa hidden by the fact of Europe’s cold war division, and the notion of … Continue reading Crumbling European solidarity

India succeeded in landing two robots, a lander named Vikram and a rover named Pragyan on the southern polar region of the moon, and made India the first country to ever reach this part of the lunar surface in one piece and the fourth country ever to land on the moon. ISRO chairman S Somanth said “ India is on the moon, we have achieved soft landing on the moon on Wednesday”. India has routinely orbited the moon and Mars and launches satellites above the Earth with far fewer financial resources than other space-faring nations. Prayers were offered for the … Continue reading India lands on Moon

Continue reading Chandrayaan-3 Lands near Moon’s South Pole

In summer 1973, John Cromer,  now 23,  graduated in third class degree,  from Downing college, one of the funniest, most self-aware character in English fiction, who detailed observations on everything from constipation to lust are such a delight to read. He stays in the city , in a council-funded flatlet, kept afloat by benefits.  He leaves Mayflower House in his trusted red mini to visit cafes, pubs and  public laboratories in search of erotic adventure, meetings of the Cambridge Homosexual Activism Project (CHAPS), the crown court for jury service and his parent and sister come for Christmas dinner. Nothing happens … Continue reading Disabled narrator comments on eroticism and spirituality

Sun 20 Aug 2023 Women’s World Cup- Final Spain.  1            England 0Carmona (29’) Spain captain Olga Carmona slotted the winner past goalkeeper Mary Earps after 29 minutes after England’s Lucy Bronze lost possession in midfield. Earps won the Golden Glove award as the best goalkeeper at the tournament, had made several saves, including the penalty shot to deny Jenni Hermoso in the second half, as she moved early to her left and caught Hermoso’s effort, the penalty having awarded for handball against midfielder Keira Walsh following a lengthy video assistant referee review. Spain with Barcelona stars who won their second … Continue reading Spain win Women’s World Cup 1-0

Eight- year-old boy in the company of his father and grandfather watched England beat West Germany at Wembley, spread out in the sun, the waving flags, the delirious, joy-of-all-joys moment of the final whistle, the trophy sparkling in the late afternoon light. The boy now Duncan Hamilton  after seeing the whole game again during the misery of the first Covid lockdown, finally made him realize what Alf Ramsey and his players had no inkling of, which was what came next for them. After England beat West Germany to win the 1966 World Cup, the victors struggled to access their emotions. … Continue reading What was won and lost

Japanese Conglomerate SoftBank  takes full control of Arm, a British semiconductor and software design company based in Cambridge, England whose primary business is the design of ARM processors which feature in the latest cutting-edge technology smartphones including Apple, Samsung with secure architecture built for performance and power efficiency. Soft bank acquired a 25 per cent of Arm which it did not already own from the Vision Fund the $100bn Saudi-backed vehicle managed by SoftBank. Arm is at a $64bn valuation. SoftBank valued the Vision Fund’s 25 per cent stake at about $16bn, roughly double the price that the fund paid … Continue reading ARM ready for IPO launch