What is common between Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, the Nizam (a former Prince) and a former Miss Turkey and pearls? Their association with the world’s happening hi-tech city of Hyderabad, in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh (the fifth largest state in the country).
After New Delhi, Hyderabad is the only city in India to attract two US Presidents. About their visits later. First about the breaking story that concerns the Nizam and a former Miss Turkey, who was once his wife.
Manolya Onur, a former Miss Turkey, has won a maintenance and compensation package worth millions of rupees from her former husband, an Indian prince whose grandfather, the last ruling Nizam of Hyderabad, was once hailed as the richest man in the world, says The Guardian.
The Nizam (princely) dynasty ruled the kingdom of Hyderabad in south India for more than 200 years until the British left the country in 1947. The spotlight turned on Hyderabad when the then Nizam refused to allow his state to accede to the Indian Republic…and troops had to be dispatched by New Delhi to “persuade” the Nizam!
After a protracted legal battle an Indian judge yesterday ordered the Nizam of Hyderabad, Mukarram Jah, 73, who lives with his fifth wife in Turkey, to pay his divorced third wife Manolya Onur maintenance, house rent and mehr (Islamic divorce compensation) amounting to about 150m rupees (£1.8m).
The judge also banned the prince from selling any of his palaces in Hyderabad, now a hub for India’s infotech revolution, until he had paid up.
The Nizam’s grandfather Osman Ali Khan was the only Maharaja (King)in British India who was accorded the title His Exalted Highness, a reward for contributing £25m to the British exchequer during the first world war.
Nizam VII Mir Osman Ali Khan was one of the richest men in the world during the 1940s. He is seen with his daughter-in-law, Princesss Nilofer, who was considered one of the most beautiful women in the world.
This website is interesting to get a flavour of old Hyderabad. And this Kiranred website too. And also the visual experiences of a European or an American woman.
And for pearls read here….and here.
The old princely city of Hyderabad is now a hi-tech city, another home to Oracle, Google, Wipro, Microsoft, Accenture, IBM, Fusion Technologies, General Electric and what have you…and promising to accommodate many more. And hence it is turning into a magnate for the US Presidents.
Early this year Mr. Bush visited Hyderabad where he met with Indian entrepreneurs, toured an agricultural university and inspected a water buffalo. President Bush’s theme was that the United States should welcome rather than fear competition from India.
“People do lose jobs as a result of globalization, and it’s painful for those who lose jobs,” Mr. Bush said at meeting with young entrepreneurs at Hyderabad’s Indian School of Business, one of the premier schools of its kind in India. Nonetheless, the president said, “globalization provides great opportunities.”
Mr. Bush strongly defended the outsourcing of American jobs to India as the reality of a global economy, and said that the United States should instead focus on India as a vital new market for American goods. Hyderabad is a center of India’s booming high-tech industry, and was also on Mr. Clinton’s itinerary when he visited India in 2000.
“The classic opportunity for our American farmers and entrepreneurs and small businesses to understand is, there is a 300 million-person market of middle-class citizens here in India, and that if we can make a product they want, that it becomes viable,” Mr. Bush said at the business school.
At an earlier stop at Hyderabad’s Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University, Mr. Bush watched Indian women in saris hand-till the soil around tomatoes, peanuts and soybeans. One of the women gave Mr. Bush a thumbs-up sign as he walked past. The president also viewed water buffalo and some Indian handcrafts.
“One of his oft-quoted statements in Indian media these days is how he introduced Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to wife Laura, exclaiming, ‘Not one Indian Muslim has joined al Qaeda.’ For Bush, more than counterbalancing China, more than a booming middle class hungry for American goods, it is India’s democracy that makes it a ‘natural partner’ for the United States, a columnist wrote.
“President Bush’s Indian agenda isn’t part of some chess game with Pakistan. His trip may not have the romance and glitz of the 2000 visit by Bill Clinton, who danced exuberantly with village women. But if Clinton made India chic in America’s eyes, Bush plans to give it clout.”
Swaraaj Chauhan describes his two-decade-long stint as a full-time journalist as eventful, purposeful, and full of joy and excitement. In 1993 he could foresee a different work culture appearing on the horizon, and decided to devote full time to teaching journalism (also, partly, with a desire to give back to the community from where he had enriched himself so much.)
Alongside, he worked for about a year in 1993 for the US State Department’s SPAN magazine, a nearly five-decade-old art and culture monthly magazine promoting US-India relations. It gave him an excellent opportunity to learn about things American, plus the pleasure of playing tennis in the lavish American embassy compound in the heart of New Delhi.
In !995 he joined WWF-India as a full-time media and environment education consultant and worked there for five years travelling a great deal, including to Husum in Germany as a part of the international team to formulate WWF’s Eco-tourism policy.
He taught journalism to honors students in a college affiliated to the University of Delhi, as also at the prestigious Indian Institute of Mass Communication where he lectured on “Development Journalism” to mid-career journalists/Information officers from the SAARC, African, East European and Latin American countries, for eight years.
In 2004 the BBC World Service Trust (BBC WST) selected him as a Trainer/Mentor for India under a European Union project. In 2008/09 He completed another European Union-funded project for the BBC WST related to Disaster Management and media coverage in two eastern States in India — West Bengal and Orissa.
Last year, he spent a couple of months in Australia and enjoyed trekking, and also taught for a while at the University of South Australia.
Recently, he was appointed as a Member of the Board of Studies at Chitkara University in Chandigarh, a beautiful city in North India designed by the famous Swiss/French architect Le Corbusier. He also teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students there.
He loves trekking, especially in the hills, and never misses an opportunity to play a game of tennis. The Western and Indian classical music are always within his reach for instant relaxation.
And last, but not least, is his firm belief in the power of the positive thought to heal oneself and others.