“Of the top 10 diamonds of the world in terms of fame or size, more than half come from India. Most of the biggies are outside India now: Koh-I-Noor with the British crown jewels, the Orloff with the Kremlin, the Desden Green in Poland, the Hope at the Smithsonian and the Regent with Louvre.” And there are some still in India, but hardly anyone knows about it.

Chidanand Rajghatta in TOI in January 22, 2006 provides the above story on India’s precious traditions, and talks of the 173 pieces of Nizam’s jewellery on display in Salaar Jang Museum in Hyderabad during Pravasi Bhartiya bash. In 1995, the government of India acquired the Nizam’s collection, including the Jacob, for around $45 million after a protracted legal battle, and the collection now worth more than $4 billion. But story of the Jacob, the most faultless diamond in the world is interesting. Discovered in South Africa, it came to India and remained here. And how did Nizam use Jacob? Nizam used it as a paperweight. His heirs found it tucked away in an old shoe.

The same paper also carries a special page on management education. It had a box listing seven Indian global gurus: CK Prahalad (University of Michigan), Amartya Sen (Cambridge and Harvard), Sumantra Ghosal (London Business School), Meghnad Desai (London School of Economics), Raghuram Rajan (University of Chicago), Dipak Jain (Kellog School of Management), and Kaushik Basu (Princton University). I am sure there are many more of significant senirity and eminence in the US universities itself. I have heard or read about most of them. Are they not also the diamonds from India radiating their brilliance outside India and getting respected?

I am sure there must be some equally good or better mangement gurus in some of the 1000 or odd management schools in India including famed IIMs. But if someone asks me to name even the five known ones, I shall not be able to do that. I may be blamed for my fault of not keeping in touch of IIMs guru of global reputation. But how’s that I don’t find any mention about their names, their contribution, research or expertise in Indian media too. Is there any restriction from the government or the media is so indifferent?

I wish our news and business magazines devoted some of its resources on those reputed gurus of the various institutions of the country and their achievements. And the gurus on their own also would have done some marketing of their works and considered the interactions with industry and government but more so with people essential for the overall benefits of the society. Why can’t they work on various types of real case studies or surveys rather than depending mostly on the external sources?

Let them not think that they are the ‘Ghar ki moogi’ and so ‘dal barobar’.