Desi News Junkies

2004-02-11T03:31:00.000-05:00

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2004-02-11T00:37:00.000-05:00

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2004-01-16T00:32:00.000-05:00

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2004-01-15T13:46:00.000-05:00

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2004-01-09T09:11:00.000-05:00

High Noon for the Diamond Industry

Can the inexorable march of technology bring to an end history's most successful monopoly?

The Indian diamond industry has done very well for itself over the last three decades. Today, over 80% of the diamond trade worldwide is controlled by Indians - not just in India but also Antwerp, New York, Israel, Hong Kong and almost any place there's a diamond industry.

There've been a number of challengers to the rise of the Indian diamond industry over the years, among them China, Thailand and Malaysia, albeit with limited success. During this boom, many of the Indian diamond merchants (almost all of them Palanpuri Jains), have made handy fortunes (check out one of their weddings.)

However, the entire diamond industry could be facing its biggest threat yet - artificially created diamonds.

While the process for creating diamonds in a lab has been around for a few decades, until recently it was error-prone and extremely expensive.

No longer.

The diamonds coming out from Apollo and Gemesis are identical (or almost so) to mined or so-called natural diamonds - such that even diamantaires can't tell the difference,. Even with a loupe.

This raises the dreaded question (if you're De Beers or a diamond merchant):

If there's no way a casual observer can tell if your 3-carat ring is topped with a natural diamond from De Beers (costing $15,000) or an artificial diamond from Apollo or Gemesis (costing $200), then what happens to the diamond market?

After all, men buy diamonds (to impress women) because they are beautiful, exclusive and expensive. And women wear diamonds primarily to impress other women at a reception. Both these selling points are history if 2-carat and 5-carat pieces are available off the shelf at Wal-Mart.

Now that's the sort of prognostication that's guaranteed to throw every thinking diamond merchant for a loop.

2004-01-09T01:04:00.000-05:00

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tTexthyperlink

2003-09-04T13:53:00.000-04:00

The purchase of BAE's Hawk jet trainer may not be a terrible move but comes close to being a bad one. It is pretty appalling given the choices available in the market. I suppose when one is used to a Tonga even a Trabant can be attractive. The Hawk also is at the top of the heap in price but represents decades old technology - it is not clear that India is getting the updated versions going into the RAF. The US is phasing out its Hawks with Lockheed's T-50 Golden Eagle - a JV with Korea Aerospace. The bosses at Vayu Bhavan remain gun shy about the US and probably still have anglophilic leanings which is probably why they did not even consider the Czech L-159B much less the Korean trainer. At any rate, they at least did better than the PAF which plumped for a dodgy plane called the JF-7 developed by China.