Tag: news

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Transformation of the World’s largest democracy

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Indira Gandhi’s ascent as prime minister in 1966, and ruled for fifteen years, which was unforeseen and soon emerged as one of the most powerful political leaders of her times, who transformed the world’s largest democracy.  Historian Srinath Raghavan, tells the story of Indira Gandhi’s political career and the momentous changes that India experienced under her leadership. From her tentative start in high office to her remarkable electoral victories, the dark days of the Emergency of 1975-1977, and her assassination at the hands of her Sikh bodyguards in 1984. Raghavan sheds new light one her politics and government, as well … Continue reading Transformation of the World’s largest democracy

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Britain hands Chago Islands to Mauritius to address historical grievances

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UK signs  £101 million-a-year deal to hand over Chagos Island, a Joint UK-US military base in the archipelago , Diego Garcia, to Mauritius. The British government felt that without ceding sovereignty to Mauritius, the operation of the base would become unworkable which would pose a great threat to UK security. Defence Secretary John Healey told MPs that “without this deal, within weeks, we could face losing legal rulings and within a few years the base would become inoperable”. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said “following a comprehensive interagency review, the Trump Administration determined that this agreement secures the long-term, stable … Continue reading Britain hands Chago Islands to Mauritius to address historical grievances

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Prada buys Versace for $1.4bn

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Luxury fashion brand, Prada Group has acquired crosstown Milan fashion rival, Versace from the U.S. luxury group, Capri Holdings Ltd, (parent company of Michael Kors and Jimmy Choo) for $1.38 billion. Capri Holdings is restructuring after a failed merger with Tapestry (owner of Coach, Kate Spade and Stuart Weitzman), which was blocked by the US Federal Trade Commission in last November. The deal includes Versace’s debt, is a big discount to the $2.15 billion debt that Capri, then known as Michael Kors, paid for Versace in 2017 when the Versace family and Blackstone sold it.  The acquisition strengthens Italy’s position in … Continue reading Prada buys Versace for $1.4bn

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Media Circus: Golden age of Magazines

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Graydon Carter’s brilliant raconteur of his own life of how he made his mark as one of society’s most talented editors and shapers of culture. Carter born in 1949, arrived in New York from Canada with little more than a suitcase, a failed literary magazine in his past and a keen sense of ambition. He landed a job as a floating writer at Time magazine in New York, selling 4 million copies a week, with salaries and expenses to match. After five years he was reassigned to Time’s sister magazine, Life, which “had become a zombie monthly, close to dead”. He … Continue reading Media Circus: Golden age of Magazines

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People’s right to think, teach and speak are routinely violated

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In Western world, free speech is held up as core value, but there is widespread discord and disagreement about what freedom of expression means. In China, India and across the Islamic world, unorthodox views about politics, sex, and religion are repressed and people are often punished for expressing them. Amidst perennial imbalances of power, continually evolving cultural taboos, dramatic new technologies and a fast-changing global media landscape, where free speech comes from- and how we might think about it- are critical questions. Through lens of history, freedom of speech is not an absolute from which societies and regimes have drifted … Continue reading People’s right to think, teach and speak are routinely violated

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Greed, lies and Veil of Secrecy

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Former Wall Street Journal reporter, editor and Bloomberg’s investigative journalist Duncan Mavin’s Melt Down exposes a crisis year for Credit Suisse’s 2023 implosion, with a lucid account of how greed and complacency of bosses and employees destroyed the bank. For centuries Swiss banks have served the globe’s wealthiest individuals, employing a strict culture of anonymity and gaining massive wealth in the process. In March 2023, bank runs and panic among depositors of smaller US lenders spread to customers of Credit Suisse. As the crisis deepened Credit Suisse remained highly solvent across a reassuringly wide range of metrics, but said it … Continue reading Greed, lies and Veil of Secrecy

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Glamour, greed from ruthless dealer, super curator and a fawning auctioneer

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“Artists are slaves to their vanity. But in the end, in time, they see things as they are”. Today’s commercial art world is a marketplace of extremes, mysterious dealing with unbelievable money, glamour with excess grubbiness, visions of great beauty, generosity, and greed. James Cahill give us the ruthless dealer Claude Berlins, who is only interested in dollar signs. The super curator Fritz Schein, is definitely involved.  A fawning auctioneer, Florian Roth, set on getting his hands on the collection of mega-rich octogenarian collector, Leo Goffman for the sale of the century. Lorna Bedford, whose gallery was the first home of … Continue reading Glamour, greed from ruthless dealer, super curator and a fawning auctioneer

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Spotify sold itself to major record labels as musicians earnings fell

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Music critic and journalist, Liz Pelly, weaves an unsparing investigation into Spotify’s origins and influence on music, with incisive cultural criticism, illuminating how streaming is reshaping music for listeners and artists alike. If you stream a song on Spotify, how money does the artist make? Spotify has been profoundly damaging for all but the most commercially successful musicians and even shaped the kind of music that they make. Like several digital start-ups, Spotify, founded in Sweden in 2006 by tech entrepreneurs Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon, purported to be revolutionsing an industry when really it was just reinforcing the status … Continue reading Spotify sold itself to major record labels as musicians earnings fell

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Democracy is in Crisis

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Democracy is in crisis across the globe, especially in UK, it has been rocked by Brexit, the pandemic and successive attempts by governments to bypass legal norms.  Jonathan Sumption renders acute analysis of the state of democracy today – from the vulnerabilities of international law to the deepening suppression of democracy activism in Hong Kong, and from the complexities of human rights legislation to the defence of freedom of speech. One of the finest examples is of Jonathan Sumption, whose career has been an unusual combination of medieval historian, barrister, supreme court judge, member of the House of Lords. The … Continue reading Democracy is in Crisis

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Have we lost ability to make things?

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We live in a manufactured world, Unless you are floating naked through space, you are right  now in direct contact with multiple manufactured products. How ofoten we stop to think: where do the things we buy actually come from? American President, Donald Trump, promised in his recent inaugural address, America would soon become “a manufacturing nation once again”. His planned tariffs, will encourage some global companies to relocate factories back to the US.  Academic expert on innovation and technology at Cambridge University, Tim Minshall’s Your Life Is Manufactured is about perils of losing touch with the art of making things .  This … Continue reading Have we lost ability to make things?