Byline: By danny hakim section: Section B; Column 0; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 1 Length
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URL: http://www.nytimes.com SUBJECT: CRICKET (78%); INTERVIEWS (77%); MEAT FREE DIETS (75%); FINE JEWELRY (72%); WEALTHY PEOPLE (70%); OIL & GAS EXPLORATION (67%); AGRICULTURAL WASTES (60%) COMPANY: RELIANCE INDUSTRIES LTD (58%) TICKER: RIGD (LSE) (58%) PERSON: MUKESH AMBANI (94%); MICHAEL MCMAHON (52%) GEOGRAPHIC: MUMBAI, INDIA (94%) INDIA (95%) CATEGORY: Business and Finance Mukesh D. Ambani LOAD-DATE: June 15, 2008 LANGUAGE: ENGLISH GRAPHIC: PHOTOS: Mukesh Ambani, India's richest man, with his daughter, Isha, at a cricket match of the Mumbai Indians, which he owns. His company, Reliance Industries, is shaping many facets of his nation's life.(PHOTOGRAPH BY RUTH FREMSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES) Shoppers at a supermarket owned by Reliance. It is building a network of hundreds of stores.(PHOTOGRAPH BY JACOB SILBERBERG FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES) The high-rise house being built for the Ambanis, with lots of parking and a helipad.(PHOTOGRAPH BY CNBC)(pg. BU7) Mukesh Ambani, front left, and his younger brother, Anil, front right, at the funeral of their father, Dhirubhai. Dhiurbhai Ambani in his office in the early days of Reliance, which he opened in 1958. At first he exported spices, then entered the yarn trade. The tenement where Mukesh Ambani spent his early childhood. In the late 1960s, the family moved to one of Mumbai's fanciest neighborhoods. An undated photograph of Mukesh Ambani, left, with his father at their Jamnagar oil complex, now one of the world's most profitable refineries. Mukesh Ambani, far right, in a 2006 family photograph, with his wife, Nita, foreground, and their children, from left, Isha, Anant and Akash.(PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE AMBANI FAMILY)(pg. BU8) CHART: Inside the Industrial Empire: Source: Reliance Industries Oil refining and the manufacturing of petroleum products make up nearly all of the revenue earned by Mukesh Ambani's industrial giant, Reliance Industries.(Source: Reliance Industries)Chart details example of production.(pg. BU7) Growth Spurt: Since Mukesh Ambani took control in 2005, Reliance Industries has grown rapidly.(Source: Bloomberg)(pg. BU8)
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company 673 of 1231 DOCUMENTS The New York Times
Late Edition - Final A Long Road To the Right Fit BYLINE: By BETH GREENFIELD SECTION: Section RE; Column 0; Real Estate Desk; THE SELL; Pg. 4 LENGTH: 1149 words PROFESSIONALLY, Carlos Vargas trains financial executives on managing mergers and developing investment strategies. Having such expertise didn't hurt when it came time for his own recent entrepreneurial move: the sale of his West Village co-op apartment. Despite high hopes that the studio would be snapped up quickly, Julia Hoagland, a broker with the Corcoran Group, said the sale took a nerve-racking nine months -- with three deals that fell through along the way. ''It was a little bit of a roller coaster,'' said Mr. Vargas, 35, who works as a business developer for a Philadelphia-based consultancy group in both New York City and Pennsylvania. Mr. Vargas, who moved to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., from Colombia eight years ago as an assistant vice president for treasuries and Internet businesses at Citigroup, came to New York in 2002 to attend business school at Columbia University. After three years in a Midtown rental, Mr. Vargas decided it was time to buy. Soon he purchased his Minetta Lane studio in the West Village, finding the apartment through an agent at the Corcoran Group. ''It was a very good location,'' Mr. Vargas said. ''Young people live in the area.'' Since it was a sponsor unit, ''it was very flexible for me to be approved to buy,'' he added. He paid $420,000 and began splitting his time among New York, Florida (where his son lives) and Philadelphia. In 2007, when most of his work moved to Philadelphia, Mr. Vargas decided to rent out his West Village studio, but eventually he put it on the market. ''I didn't want to sell it, but I was looking at my cash flow situation and I had to get rid of one of my properties to pay off some debts,'' he explained. ''Of the three properties I owned, this one represented the highest return.'' Mr. Vargas was hands-off for the sale, relying on Ms. Hoagland, his broker, to have the place painted and marketed. ''It took infinitely longer than expected,'' said Ms. Hoagland, who had a six-month exclusive with a three-month extension on the 600-square-foot unit. ''And it's the cutest little apartment. It's in a great building, has a super and laundry on site, prewar character, a roof deck, and is totally quiet despite being in a busy part of the Village. So that made it even more baffling -- why was it taking so long to sell?'' Part of it was the timing, Ms. Hoagland said, as the place went on the market last summer -- a typically slow time for sales -- just a few weeks before the country's subprime mortgage crisis erupted. Ms. Hoagland said they had decided to price the apartment a bit aggressively at first, asking $550,000, since Mr. Vargas was not in a great hurry to sell. The first offer came within three weeks, from parents who wanted to buy the place for their daughter. They lost steam when their lawyer went on vacation, and had dropped out by the time he returned. Ms. Hoagland and Mr. Vargas lowered the asking price to $530,000. Then came Joe Boone, an agricultural specialist with the Department of Homeland Security, who considered the place for himself, his wife, Akiko, and their 2-year-old son. They decided to go for it. ''Minetta Lane was just the kind of space we were looking for,'' said Mr. Boone, 42, who had been renting a large studio with his family in a co-op building on nearby Bank Street. ''It had an elevator, was in a low-rise building in the West Village, had a garden space in front and enough space for three of us -- and our offer was actually accepted.'' In the midst of the deal, they decided on a whim to ask their downstairs neighbors -- an elderly couple who owned their place but spent most of their time in the Catskills -- if they would consider selling them their apartment. They said yes, and Mr. Boone and his family backed out of Minetta Lane, buying the downstairs place in their building directly from the owners. Meanwhile, other people looked but didn't want to buy. ''The wood floors were beautiful, the bathroom uniquely long and the kitchen compact and well designed for practical use,'' said Kelly Skalicky, 45, a lawyer who rents in Midtown. ''But the building itself was a bit outdated, with seemingly old elevators, poor outside lighting and dark hallways. Plus there was no doorman.'' Kevin Treanor, a 52-year-old compliance officer for an investment banking firm, was attracted to the location but not thrilled with the overall condition of the apartment. ''The tile in the bath needed to be replaced,'' he said, ''and the closet doors and kitchen needed work.'' The third offer came along in December from a man who delivered a signed contract and deposit. But Ms. Hoagland, who was skittish about the offer, warned Mr. Vargas not to sign because the potential buyer had not yet sold his house in New Jersey, which he had hoped to do by that time. ''His debt-to-income ratio was too high, and he would not have passed board approval,'' she said. Her advice proved wise, as the New Jersey sale fell through, and, consequently, so did the man's offer for the studio. ''It was a little string of bad juju,'' Ms. Hoagland said. But then along came Benjamin Chen, 26, a hedge-fund associate and investment analyst who had been sharing a three-bedroom rental in East Midtown with two friends. ''I wanted to live by myself,'' he said, ''and I'd become committed to staying in New York City for a long time, which led me to consider buying.'' Mr. Chen spent less than a month looking for his ideal space. He wanted something downtown, either in the Village or SoHo, that was quiet and light-filled, was next to a subway stop, had an elevator and was not on a first floor. ''I was not finding many units fitting that description,'' he said. ''I had to find something with unique appeal.'' He found it on Minetta Lane, where he was swayed by the location and by the layout -- a generous foyer leading to a large sunken living space with a parquet floor, a raised iron-rail alcove and large windows along its east side, and an adjacent kitchen. Mr. Chen was also pleased to learn that the co-op board was relaxed about subletting -- an option he wanted to have for the future. ''I made an offer the day I saw it:'' $520,000, he said. The apartment closed in March, but the actual contract price was subsequently $504,400. Since Mr. Chen is a licensed real-estate agent, he asked that the price be reduced to reflect what he would have otherwise received as a commission. Mr. Chen moved into the studio on a balmy weekend in May, directing furniture movers where to place his black leather couch. He gazed out the window over the back entrance of Panchito's Mexican Restaurant. ''I was concerned about noise, so I interviewed the bartender, and he said that it's always like that,'' he said, gesturing to a couple of mellow patrons quietly sipping beers in the doorway. ''Basically, this is the quintessential Village studio.''
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company 674 of 1231 DOCUMENTS The New York Times
Correction Appended Late Edition - Final
Laura Miller is a staff writer for Salon and the author of ''The Magician's Book: A Skeptic's Adventures in Narnia,'' which will be published in December. SECTION: Section BR; Column 0; Book Review Desk; Pg. 18 LENGTH: 1336 words MINDERS OF MAKE-BELIEVE Idealists, Entrepreneurs, and the Shaping of American Children's Literature. By Leonard S. Marcus. 402 pp. Houghton Mifflin Company. $28. When my second-grade teacher was growing up during the Great Depression, she discovered what would become her favorite book at the Cleveland Heights Public Library. Unfortunately, by the time she'd finished reading ''The Hobbit'' and persuaded her parents to buy her a copy, they couldn't find it in the bookstore. Undeterred, she checked out the library's copy over and over again, determined to make one of her own by pecking out the entire text with two fingers on the family's manual typewriter. How many authors who write for adults can boast of having a reader so utterly devoted to their work? Leonard Marcus's ''Minders of Make-Believe: Idealists, Entrepreneurs, and the Shaping of American Children's Literature'' is the story of the apparatus that conjured such readers into existence: the children's librarian who chose to order ''The Hobbit''; the publisher (Houghton Mifflin, Marcus's own) who brought it to market, the stores that were out of stock (possibly because of paper shortages). He even has a few words for the parents who, in the mid-20th century, increasingly saw books as an investment in their children's future. What probably strikes many people as the most fascinating aspect of the history of children's literature in America -- the children, and the literature itself -- takes a back seat to editors and reviewers, printers and magazines, libraries and bookstores. Studies of books for young people are a recent phenomenon. ''Children's books,'' Marcus writes, ''may well have mattered so little to historians of past generations precisely because the books mattered so much to children. With their place firmly fixed in the foreground of young people's intimate lives, few scholars thought to look further or to ask what the books might possibly mean as commercial or cultural artifacts, much less as works of literature and art.'' ''Minders of Make-Believe'' primarily views them as commodities -- ones that went from a trifling sideline to a $3.4 billion industry and have on occasion become the focus of fierce cultural battles. Marcus orders his account chronologically -- from primers to Potter, so to speak -- beginning with the first children's book published in the colonies, ''The New-England Primer'' (1689) and concluding with J. K. Rowling's record-breaking series, the only books of any kind to have their release dates celebrated at midnight festivals nationwide. No doubt this structure is meant to emphasize how much children's book publishing has changed in the past 320 years, but in truth, the industry has been peppered with the same kinds of minor crises that have characterized adult trade publishing over the decades. Budgets are cut in lean years and fattened during booms. Outrage flares when a publisher fires a revered editor in a ''spectacular act of administrative shortsightedness'' and then the editor is hired a month or so later by someone else. Authors grumble about their contracts. Experts worry about the degradation of the public's taste and the distractions of other media. And someone is always around to reminisce about how much more noble and idealistic the business was 30 or 40 years ago. One thing that did distinguish children's publishing in the early 20th century, however, was the predominance of women in the industry, as editors, critics and librarians. The first editorial division devoted exclusively to children's books, the Department of Books for Boys and Girls, established by Macmillan in 1919, was headed up by Louise Seaman, a former schoolteacher and graduate of Vassar. Like teaching and missionary work, Marcus notes, working with children's books was considered one of the '''mothering' professions'' to which women were supposed to be uniquely suited. Once ''Minders of Make-Believe'' gets to the period after World War I, it's taken over by a procession of formidable grandes dames, each armed with ''a Seven Sisters degree and the well-honed social skills that implied.'' These were among the first women to attain positions of significance in the men's club of book publishing. Despite the relative uniformity of their backgrounds, the doyennes of the children's book world did feud on occasion. One major divide lay between children's librarians, epitomized by the daunting Anne Carroll Moore, the New York Public Library's first children's director, and progressive educators, led by Lucy Sprague Mitchell, who ran the experimental Greenwich Village school now known as Bank Street. The librarians endorsed ''timeless'' fairy tales and folklore as the gold standard in children's fiction, while Mitchell and her camp advocated contemporary stories in settings familiar to young readers. ''Little Red Riding Hood,'' Mitchell protested, was ''brutal,'' ''Cinderella'' was ''sentimental,'' and far too many of the traditional tales were filled with ''the strange, the bizarre, the unreal.'' Virginia Haviland of the Library of Congress referred to the disagreement as the ''controversy raging over 'milk bottles' versus 'Grimm' for the preschool child.'' In the picture book world, a schism separated the champions of the ''book beautiful'' from the producers of cheap and cheerful items like the Little Golden Books series, which tended to be sold in five-and-dime stores to the stressed-out parents of whining kids. The quality of the paper, printing and binding in children's books was a particular obsession for librarians and high-minded booksellers and editors, to the degree that these worthies often seemed to lose track of the books' intended audience. Marcus writes of an editor at Viking during the inflation-straitened 1970s, who, ''in fear and trembling,'' was obliged to ask Robert McCloskey if he would permit the reprinting of ''Make Way for Ducklings'' without a dust jacket. McCloskey consented, though the experience ''soured'' him. Anyone who's ever seen a 4-year-old handle a book will wonder why it had a dust jacket to begin with. ibraries and librarians were perhaps the mightiest force in the children's book world until the cutbacks of the 1970s and a boom in parental book-buying during the 1980s knocked them from their throne. In their heyday, children's librarians imperiously banished series fiction (like the Tom Swift and Rover Boys books and, later on, Nancy Drew) from many collections, as well as the Little Golden Books -- some of which number among my own childhood favorites. The prejudice against series, the most popular of which were formulaic adventure stories churned out by the Stratemeyer Syndicate, was so virulent that Laura Ingalls Wilder's autobiographical novels about her pioneer childhood were repeatedly shut out of librarian-administered awards competitions like the Newbery Medal, merely because they seemed series-ish. (Eventually, the American Library Association created a lifetime achievement award in Wilder's name and presented her with the first one in 1954.) Although the titans of the genre, from Wilder and Dr. Seuss to E. B. White and Maurice Sendak, make brief appearances in ''Minders of Make-Believe,'' this is finally a publishing history, the sort of book whose typical event might be characterized as ''And then she went to Scribner. ...'' Marcus, a charming and nimble writer, makes a valiant effort to keep things interesting, but the editorial shake-ups and new printing technologies will be of interest primarily to historians and people in the industry. It's the editor's lot, alas, to subsist on reflected glory. The most interesting thing about even the most esteemed individuals that Marcus covers are the authors they discovered and the books they published, and there's not quite enough about either in ''Minders of Make-Believe.'' The effect is a little like hanging around at a perfectly nice party while there's a terrific one going on just down the hall.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company 675 of 1231 DOCUMENTS The New York Times
Late Edition - Final Beijing Lights Up the Night BYLINE: By DAN LEVIN SECTION: Section ST; Column 0; Style Desk; Pg. 1 LENGTH: 1180 words DATELINE: BEIJING BEAMING across the smoggy night sky like twin hedonist bat signals, the searchlights at the entrance of the giant dance club GT Banana also illuminated a small brass plaque in the doorway that reads ''precious your life -- say no to drugs.'' Hurrying inside toward the throbbing techno music on a recent Friday night, Chen Ping, a 26-year-old graphic designer, chuckled at the sobering warning. ''The person who thought of that is smart,'' he said. ''Young Chinese are looking for an escape because they work so hard. Maybe it is good to remind them not to lose their way.'' Bartenders within the multilevel club were juggling Champagne bottles topped with sparklers while revelers lounged on white banquettes, drinking Chivas Regal and green tea. On the dance floor, which is designed to bounce underfoot, hundreds of sweaty men and women wriggled to deafening Mandarin pop remixes under a downpour of bubbles. The Macarena, or something close to it, was on full display. Not to be outdone, a dozen young men giddily pushed through the throng in a conga line. Others stood and stared, in awe of the sensory overload. Not long ago, Beijing night life mostly meant private dinner parties for the powerful, alcohol-soaked karaoke bars or visits to ''lady massage'' parlors. Universities are still known to lock the dormitory doors around midnight. But as the wave of global bankers, entertainment entrepreneurs and foreign college students has flooded the city, and development driven by the Olympic Games here this summer demolishes ancient neighborhoods and traditional Communist inhibitions, the capital's new monied class has come out to party. ''Fifteen years ago, everyone went to sleep at 9 p.m.,'' said Wang Xiaodong, a 36-year-old professional D.J. ''What could I do? Where could I go? There were no parties, nothing.'' The country's market reforms also opened Beijing's cultural armor, and foreigners began introducing techno music to locals hungry for sounds from the outside world. By the end of the '90s, all-night parties on the Great Wall were drawing hundreds of Chinese and foreign ravers. The gatherings were banned in 2006 after reports depicting them as ''wild orgies'' surfaced in China's state-controlled news media. Still, Beijing's appetite for club culture and techno beats continued to grow, in part fueled by the information and speed on the Internet. ''Before, there was no way to get this music, and I had to find it through friends who brought it from Europe,'' said Mr. Wang, who organized some of the Great Wall parties. ''Now we can go online and hear the newest Berlin tracks at the same time as the Germans.'' Jin Shu, a public relations executive who studied at Oxford before returning to Beijing five years ago, is thrilled that the capital is catching up to London and Ibiza. ''Electronica is now more popular then hip-hop,'' he said. ''Chinese have more of a desire to see and compare themselves to overseas night life, and this is what they are hearing.'' TODAY, the Chinese seem to be discovering simultaneously the last 40 years of pop music, not only house and techno beats but classic rock, salsa and punk. The chaotic fusion of influences gives Beijing night life a creative, if hectic, tang. ''It's the ultimate post-modernist laboratory,'' said Dan Stephenson, 31, a Salt Lake City native who moved to Beijing six years ago and created the Syndicate, which puts on drum 'n' bass parties at bars and clubs. ''The same guy who was riding a bike 10 years ago is now driving his new Ferrari to a club and drinking Champagne,'' he said. Indeed, on any given night, rows of BMW's, Porsches and black Mercedes S.U.V.'s, many with government license plates, line up outside nocturnal hot spots, often in the shadow of imperial temples and Communist monuments. Inside, those willing to pay hundreds of dollars to be seated at a table and served alcohol by the bottle are segregated behind velvet ropes. ''Bottle service was made for the Chinese,'' said Timothy Ma, a Chinese-Australian D.J. who has lived in Beijing for more than a decade and spins at a club named the World of Suzie Wong. ''They want to separate themselves from the masses, which is interesting given China's history.'' V.I.P. booths at clubs like Suzie Wong's can go for $570, more than many Chinese farmers make in a year. Sebastien Noat, the manager of Block 8, a year-old luxury night-life complex that imports Australian white sand for its roof parties, said he sold 240 bottles of Moet & Chandon on a recent Saturday night. In the last five years, monthly bottle sales of Champagne and Grey Goose vodka have doubled. ''Beijing is the bank,'' said Mr. Noat, who is 31 and from Monte Carlo. ''The owners of America live here.'' On a recent Friday night at Lan Club, the queen bee of Beijing ostentation, ceramic proletariat figurines gazed out from a glass display case at a crowd of young bourgeoisie puffing on cigars, toasting with litchi martinis and dancing on leather armchairs to the blaring techno of David Guetta, a French D.J. One reveler, Wang Jing, clutching a pink Louis Vuitton purse under her arm, declared she was unmoved. ''The music is O.K., but not great,'' she said, stating a preference for Beyonce. Ms. Wang, a Beijing native who is a 22-year-old accountant, said she and friends used to go to karaoke bars, but lately have been checking out the club scene. ''It's more popular to go to these places now,'' she said. ''People have more money to buy alcohol, and here we can drink and dance.'' Although megaclubs like Lan and GT Banana evoke their glitzy cousins around the world, including Las Vegas, there are also smaller places catering to fringe musical genres like minimal techno and drum 'n' bass. ''The mainstream goes out to drink a lot, spend cash and pick up hot chicks,'' said Miao Wong, standing on the deck of a club named the Boat, a barge on the grimy Liangma River. ''But we go for culture.'' Ms. Wong, 23, who manages a local techno recording label, said her crowd jokes that for Chinese, the biggest party still takes place at the dinner table, where friends, neighbors and co-workers spend hours eating, smoking and drinking heavily. ''Westerners think we don't have freedom here,'' Ms. Wong said, ''but China is such a free place. An eight-year-old can buy cigarettes and alcohol, which isn't good, but that's the kind of twisted freedom we have. As long as we don't touch the government, nobody gives a damn.'' That laissez-faire attitude toward night life is changing, though, as local officials scramble to clean up Beijing before the Olympic Games, which will be held Aug. 8 to 24. Over the last several months, police raided clubs in the Sanlitun district. Citing ''security concerns,'' officials warned that clubs near Olympic sites may have to close during the Games. ''Everyone is worried,'' said Yang Bing, who owns White Rabbit, a techno club in a drab basement. ''The Olympics are just a big headache. We're looking forward to them being over so things can go back to normal.'' Download 5,58 Mb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham:
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