Kanojia's Aereo ok for the moment. Ahluwalia gets free publicity. Indians arrested for ivory and antiques theft.

Gateway of India, Mumbai

Two media start ups founded by Indians in the US were in the news this week. If the court rules in its favor, Aereo, founded by Chet Kanojia, has a big potential web casting on air TV signals for $12 a month to subscribers in cities like New York, Chicago and San Francisco where local TV station signals are blocked by tall buildings nearby. Or even in suburbs where the TV signals are blocked by trees etc. Besides the court fight with the major cable companies, Cable and telephone companies already offer some basic on air channels also for around $12 a month. They can expand their offering to match or counter Aereo's service. 

Chet Kanojia's Aereo not blocked from web streaming of TV air broadcasts by judge in New York

Dinesh Shamdasani and Jason Kothari, classmates at the Wharton School, paid a few hundred thousand dollars to buy the stories and rights to 1500 characters of Valiant Comics out of bankruptcy in 2005. They now hope to convert the comics, with as yet no big names, into major box office movie hits. The field is crowded with Marvel, DC and others.

Dinesh Shamdasani & Jason Kothari seek fortune in films using Valiant's comic book library

In the arts world, Anish Kapoor's sculptures continue to attract attention and acclaim, this time at the Israel Museum, in Jerusalem and Waris Ahluwalia gets good publicity for his jewelry line by attending numerous high profile parties in New York City.

Frieda Pinto is lovely but with no pulse in "Trishna" says reviewer

Waris Ahluwalia, jewelry designer & actor, gets free publicity showing up at New York social events

Anish Kapoor's metallic sculpture at Israel Museum scene of dance party

At an auction at Sotheby's in London last week, the Indian Government paid $1.1 million for the papers of Mahatma Gandhi while he was residing in South Africa.
Perhaps former New York Times editor Joseph Lelyveld used some of these same papers for his book on Gandhi, which stirred a controversy by hinting at more than a friendship between Gandhi and his male Quaker friend in South Africa.

 Mahatma Gandhi's papers bought for $1.1 million by Indian government at Sotheby's London auction


Also in the news were Mukesh Gupta, pleading guilty in New York for selling jewelry based on ivory from endangered elephants and Subhash Kapoor who was arrested in Germany and flown to Chennai to be tried for the theft of 18 antique statues from temples in Tamil Nadu.   


Mukesh Gupta and Johnson Lu plead guilty to peddling $1 million of ivory jewelry from endangered elephants


Subhash Chandra Kapoor, antiques dealer, arrested for theft of temple idols 

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