Latest news with #Vakil
New Indian Express
a day ago
- New Indian Express
Hours after car crash kills four Kanwariyas in Gwalior, MP CM Mohan Yadav announces Rs four lakh ex gratia each
BHOPAL: Ex-gratia of Rs 4 lakh each has been announced by Madhya Pradesh chief minister Dr Mohan Yadav to the next of kin of the four Kanwariyas who were crushed to death by a speeding car in Gwalior district on Tuesday-Wednesday intervening night. Four men, including the driver and owner of the car have so far been detained by the Gwalior district police and booked for causing death by negligence. According to a Gwalior district police official, the car bearing the registration number MP09WD0226 was owned by a Gwalior resident, but illegally rented to another man. Five men were boarding the car from Gwalior city to Dabra town of Gwalior district to be part of a party on Wednesday, when the tyre of the speeding car burst, causing the car to become uncontrollable and run over the four Kanwariyas fatally. Four men hailing from two families identified as Vakil (40) Ramesh (38) Dinesh (21) and Chhotu (18), all residents of a single village, were fatally run over by a speeding car, which lost control following a tyre burst. In addition to the four fatalities, two other Kanwariyas sustained injuries in the incident. The foursome was part of a 13-strong group of Kanwariyas, who were returning to their village after fetching water in their Kanwar (decorated bamboo pole with two water pots) for Lord Shiva's Jalabhishek.
Time of India
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Reel Life: NFAI preserves the 8mm world of Jai Dordi Vakil
Discarding doesn't come easy to Delhi-based ethnomusicologist and archivist Shubha Chaudhuri. Which explains the boxes of vintage sarees and a suitcase containing black-and-white family photographs, some featuring faces even her 98-year-old mother cannot recognize. It took years, but she finally managed to clear out the Colaba flat of her mother's "pretty, practical and proper" elder sister, Jai Dordi Vakil, who passed away in 2022, two months shy of 100. Among the belongings, Chaudhuri—executor of her aunt's estate—uncovered a projector, Ganeshotsav slides, various untitled frames, and most notably, reels of 8mm and Super 8mm home movies that have now found a home at Pune's National Film Archive of India (NFAI). A popular amateur film format introduced in the 1930s, 8mm was compact, affordable and easy to use, making it the go-to medium for home movie makers long before digital video became accessible. Described by NFAI as "a window into mid-20th-century life," the reels chronicle a life well-travelled and quietly documented. "I don't know what's on the reels or what condition they're in," says Chaudhuri. "But I'm sure there's travel footage and shots of military planes that could be of interest," she adds, having donated the archive with help from her friend, architect-filmmaker Nachiket Patwardhan. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Ready for a Glow-Up? [Get Your Reading Now] Undo Glow-Up Packages from $15 [Sign Up] Undo Affect Your Future Now! (Book Today) Undo You Can Also Check: Mumbai AQI | Weather in Mumbai | Bank Holidays in Mumbai | Public Holidays in Mumbai Born in 1922, Vakil studied at St Xavier's College in Mumbai, learned French and later worked at the Indian embassy in Brussels. During a posting in Delhi, she met Air Force officer Jamshed Dordi, her future husband. Together, they travelled widely—across Africa, Japan, Italy, Hong Kong, Austria, Nepal and Bhutan, and within India to Gir, Bharatpur, Kashmir, Goa and Mahabaleshwar—footage of which now survives on her 8mm reels. Though not a professional filmmaker, Vakil—whom NFAI calls an "amateur filmmaker"—had a cinematic eye. "She was technically oriented. She would repair her own car," says Chaudhuri. "While she loved documenting her travels, she couldn't pursue a career in the visual arts as life kept her moving." Safaris, American highways, European streets--her flashgun lapped it all up. "She didn't have children. Whenever my mother and I visited, she'd set up the projector and play her films," says Chaudhuri, who also found a box of alphabet cutouts used to paste titles onto the reels. "Home movies offer glimpses into domestic and communal experiences," says Prakash Magdum, managing director, NFDC-NFAI. "They're fragments of memory, capturing cultural and emotional landscapes across time and class." Preserving such material isn't easy. "Celluloid often arrives with an unknown history—how it was stored, whether it was rewound or handled well," explains Magdum. "We stabilize and preserve it under archival conditions." Once digitized, curated excerpts may be made accessible to students and researchers. "We're already collaborating with cultural institutions and looking to expand engagement," says Magdum. Vakil's story is a reminder that the visual history of Indian cinema is shaped not only by stars and studios but also by women with cameras and quiet curiosity. "She put in effort labelling slides, camera gear, old photos," says Chaudhuri. After Jamshed's death in 1995, Vakil—who loved Western classical music and concerts—seemed to withdraw. "She had stopped labelling things after 2015. Though she had four cupboards full of pretty clothes, she would wear the same ten pairs. " Vakil visited Iran with friends, and once came to Delhi, recalls Chaudhuri. But that was that: "She wasn't one to travel solo."
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Former Heads of Google Travel and Tripadvisor Form AI Startup to Head Off Online Travel Agencies
DirectBooker, a startup backed by former Tripadvisor CEO Steve Kaufer and ex-Google Travel head Richard Holden, wants to feed hotel listings directly into AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini — challenging the role of online travel agencies like 'The default behavior is going to be for the OTAs to win again,' said Sanjay Vakil, a co-founder and the CEO of DirectBooker. 'And I would like to head off that outcome. But it's going to take more than three people to do that, so we're looking to grow a little bit.' Vakil held various product management leadership roles at Google Travel and Tripadvisor. The other two co-founders of DirectBooker are Chief Product Officer Theresa Meyer and Chief Technology Officer George Madrid. The Problem to Solve With increasing numbers of consumers searching for travel on ChatGPT, Perplexity, Anthropic, and Gemini, online travel agencies such as and Tripadvisor are establishing partnerships with them to deliver hotel inventory. Vakil said DirectBooker wants to establish relationships with hotels and deliver more robust and comprehensive hotel data to the LLMs. The would be for hotels to attract direct bookings –bypassing the OTAs. Holden, Kaufer, and Vakil published their thoughts in a post called 'Winning the AI Era: How Hotels Can Break Free From OTA Dependence.' Vakil believes that most travelers want to book directly with hotels, and that they would benefit from more detailed hotel information, lower prices, and additional perks. 'There's this opportunity for hotels to showcase themselves to best advantage that's really been missing,' Vakil said. The startup is calling these 'direct bookings' though travelers would still be going first to LLMs – it's not as direct as going to, say, What Is the Competitive Moat? DirectBooker claims it has a tech advantage. It plans to use Model Context Protocol (MCP) technology, which is an open standard and, it argues, can deliver better data. But the same technology is available to competitors as well. 'There's a world in which the OTAs sort of put an MCP layer on top of that [their feeds] and provide that information to the LLMs,' Vakil said. 'I haven't seen it happen yet, and I can imagine technological mismatches that make that more difficult than it should be. We're building our stuff from the ground up.' DirectBooker Is In Startup Mode DirectBooker is at a very early stage. It received pre-seed backing from venture firm Baukunst, and has raised around $2 million from investors, including Kaufer and Holden. The three co-founders are working on DirectBooker, as well as a half-dozen contractors, Vakil said. The startup doesn't have a product or hotel partnerships yet, although it has been speaking with hotels for about a year. Vakil thinks the startup would probably use traditional CPC and CPA models to get paid, but the business model isn't the focus for now. 'I think the industry has settled on particularly expensive transactions, but they don't need to be that expensive,' Vakil said. 'We should be able to get people to them inexpensively, partly because I get to avoid a bunch of the costs that the OTAs have. I don't need customer service. I don't need to worry about protecting customer data. I'm just handing people directly over to the hotel, who already has to do that.' For now, a consumer website, is just turf to test ideas. The real play would revolve around hotel and LLM partnerships. Get breaking travel news and exclusive hotel, airline, and tourism research and insights at Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Economic Times
22-06-2025
- Business
- Economic Times
Israel-Iran war, HDB Financial IPO among 9 factors that can move D-Street this week
Indian benchmark indices ended with weekly gains of 1.6% ending their three-sessions losing streak, thanks to the Friday surge. A host of important domestic and global events lined-up during the week are likely to impact stock markets when they resume trading on Monday. ADVERTISEMENT On Friday, Nifty jumped 319.15 points or 1.3% to end the day at 25,112.40. Commenting on the action, Devarsh Vakil - Head of Prime Research at HDFC Securities said that Nifty finally witnessed an excellent breakout by closing above 25,000 levels. While the short term trend remains positive, immediate resistance is now placed at 25,222 levels while the support has shifted upwards at 24,900 levels, Vakil said. Factors that are likely to impact movement when markets reopen this week:Israel's war on Iran has entered its second week with US striking Iranian nuclear sites and directly joining Israel 's war. The targeted locations reportedly include the highly fortified Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan nuclear facilities. Meanwhile, Iran has vowed retaliation and the United States has begun evacuation flights from Israel. U.S. stocks ended lackluster on Friday notwithstanding better-than-expected Accenture revenue estimates for the third quarter. But the Israel-Iran conflict weighed on Wall Street as investors remained cautious over the developments regarding the Israel-Iran conflict. ADVERTISEMENT Indian markets will also take cues from Wall Street which ended with sharp gains on Friday. Dow 30 closed at 42,206.80, rising by 35.16 points or 0.08% while the S&P 500 finished 13.03 points or 0.22% lower at 5,967.84. Nasdaq Composite closed at 19,447.40, down 98.86 points or 0.51%. The anticipation for an action-packed week for the primary market is getting stronger with 13 IPOs on the anvil. They are expected to collectively raise nearly Rs 16,000 crore. In this, five mainboard IPOs will be launched with HDFC Bank's NBFC subsidiary HDB Financial Services IPO hitting the D-Street. In the SME segment eight companies will vie for investor attention and not to mention numerous listings. ADVERTISEMENT Read More: IPO Tsunami: HDB Financial Services, 12 others to raise up to Rs 16,000 crore next weekThe BSE Sensex is set for a reshuffle next week, with Tata Group's Trent and Bharat Electronics (BEL) entering the benchmark 30-share index, replacing Nestle India and IndusInd Bank. The changes, announced earlier, will take effect from Monday, June 23, while passive fund flows linked to the rejig are expected on June 20. ADVERTISEMENT IndusInd Bank, which has faced scrutiny over governance concerns in recent months, will also be excluded. The lender may see outflows of $145 million, equivalent to about 1.9 times its ADV. Plenty of corporate action is lined-up this week with record dates for dividends, stock splits, rights issue and bonus shares over the five-day trading week. Nearly four dozen companies will see the action unfold. ADVERTISEMENT Among the widely tracked stocks that will be in focus will be HDFC Bank, Vedanta, Hindustan Unilever (HUL), Polycab, Samvardhana Motherson International, Automobile Corporation of Goa, Bajaj Finserv, Bajaj Holdings & Investment and Cipla. Read Full Story: Corporate actions next week: Record dates for HDFC Bank, HUL, Vedanta dividend. Check bonus issue, stock split details Market actions will rely on how foreign institutional investors (FIIs) behave. On Friday, FIIs bought shares worth Rs 7,940.70 crore while the domestic institutional investors (DIIs) were net sellers at Rs 3,049.88 remaining net buyers in April and May, FIIs so far have been net sellers of Indian equities in June at Rs 4,192 crore. Also Read: FIIs buy stocks worth Rs 8,710 crore this week, narrow June sell-off to Rs 4,192 crore Nifty formed a sizable bull candle with a higher high and higher low signaling resumption of up move after recent corrective consolidation and the index in the process closed firmly above the 25,000 levels signalling strength, a note by Bajaj Broking said. It anticipates the index to retest the upper boundary of the recent five-week consolidation zone, currently pegged near the 25,200 mark. 'A decisive breakout above this resistance band could open the door for an upward extension towards the 25,500 zone in the near term. As long as the index sustains above the prior week's swing low of 24,700, the near-term bias is expected to remain constructive. Key short-term support is placed at 24,500–24,400 zone being the confluence of the 50-day EMA and the lower band of the last five weeks consolidation range,' the brokerage Indian rupee modestly strengthened Friday, its first advance in six days tracking inflows into domestic equities, to close at 86.58 per dollar. The rupee climbed 14 paise despite volatile oil prices and no immediate signs of a truce in the Israel-Iran strength in the rupee came after US President Donald Trump signalled to avoid any precipitate action on Iran. Rebalancing of the FTSE Russell index also led to some flows, traders said. The rupee traded between 86.54 and 86.67 to the dollar on oil prices remain critical for the stock markets as they have the potential to alter the inflation dynamics in a country. They have jumped nearly 10% over the past month and with the deepening crisis, the fears of price escalation are US WTI oil contracts ended at $74.04, up by $0.54 or 0.73% while Brent oil futures were hovering near $77.01, higher by $1.53 or 1.94%. (Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of Economic Times)
Express Tribune
14-06-2025
- Business
- Express Tribune
Gulf countries fear Israel-Iran spillover
Gulf countries on Friday unanimously condemned Israel's strikes on Iran, fearing an escalation that could threaten economic interests and security. "Gulf states are very much caught between a rock and a hard place," Sanam Vakil, director of the Chatham House think-tank's Middle East and North Africa Programme told AFP. While "they are quietly applauding the further weakening of Iran they face real risks and have to play their cards carefully", she said. Their close ties to Israel's protector Washington, which maintains military bases in the region, and their proximity to Iran — and its missiles — pose risks. Vakil said that "Saudi diplomats are distancing themselves from Israel and condemning the strikes as a means to stay out of this conflict". The unfolding situation is playing out against a recent diplomatic rapprochement Riyadh has been building with Tehran ever since China in 2023 brokered an agreement aiming to restore ties. "This is a notable difference with the situation that prevailed in the region 10 years ago, when Saudi Arabia was sort of inciting the United States to strike Iran, calling it the 'head of the snake'," said Karim Bitar, a lecturer in Middle Eastern studies at Paris's Sciences Po university. Indeed, as Tehran reeled from Israel's attacks and planned retaliation, Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan called his Iranian counterpart and "stressed the importance of dialogue to address disputes". "Gulf countries realise that this Israeli attack will jeopardise their economic interests as well as the entire stability" of the region, Bitar said. That is a major preoccupation of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has been focusing on economic growth, giga-projects at home and diversification away from oil. During Donald Trump's first US presidency, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had pushed for a stronger stance against Iran. Gulf countries supported Trump's decision to pull the United States out of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. But Gulf sentiment began to change after the United States failed to provide significant backing following attacks blamed on Tehran, analysts said. A 2019 attack — claimed by Yemen's Huthis but blamed by Riyadh and Washington on Tehran — hit Saudi Arabia's Abqaiq processing plant and Khurais oil field, temporarily halving the kingdom's crude output. Tehran denied involvement. The UAE too has been targeted by attacks from the Huthis that hit Abu Dhabi in 2022. Seeking to avert attacks by Iran and its proxies, especially as they host US bases that could become targets in the wake of a broader conflict, Gulf monarchies have pursued a detente.
