World’s Most Expensive House

John Kenneth Galbraith, a distinguished economist and the popular American ambassador to India in the 1960s, once described the country as a “functioning anarchy”. Please judge for yourself if Galbraith was right or wrong… The drawing (on the left) shows the 27-storey house of Mukesh Ambani, world’s fifth-richest man, being built in Mumbai, home to Asia’s biggest slum. Mukesh’s $ I billion home would be ready in six months. Here is The Independent story… And to read how his brother, Anil Ambani, a business rival, is arranging a marriage between Bollywood and Hollywood, please click here… Now read this: “Wealth distribution in India is fairly uneven, with the top 10% of income groups earning 33% of the income. Despite significant economic progress, 1/4 of the nation’s population earns less than the government-specified poverty threshold of $0.40/day…” More here…

Let me add a bit of nostalgia. As children we used to play in the picturesque Lodi Gardens, New Delhi, where we often saw a tall American (almost 6 feet 9 inches) taking a stroll. At times Ambassador John Galbraith, mentioned above, would stop, watch us play and even talk and laugh with us. I still remember his wonderful and friendly face. The other American whom I met later in life in New Delhi was also an unforgettable personality/human being — Norman Cousins.

The famous editor/writer Cousins’s philosophy toward his work was exemplified by his instructions to his staff “not just to appraise literature, but to try to serve it, nurture it, safeguard it.” Cousins believed that “there is a need for writers who can restore to writing its powerful tradition of leadership in crisis.”
More here…