Mommy. Editor. Journalist
New Delhi
Joined May 2009
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A diamond is clearly not forever!
Walmart is selling real diamond earrings for $12.
Not a typo. Half-carat lab-grown diamonds, same carbon, graded by the same labs that grade the stone in your engagement ring. A jeweler can't tell them apart without a machine.
And that $12 price tag is why the company that invented the engagement ring is about to get sold for scrap.
De Beers ran the diamond trade for over a century. At its peak it controlled up to 90% of the world's rough supply, and when demand dipped it just locked diamonds in London vaults until prices came back. The slogan "A Diamond Is Forever" came from their ad agency in 1947. So did the rule that a ring should cost two months of your salary. Before that campaign, most American brides never got a diamond at all.
The whole thing held for 80 years because there were only so many mines. Then China started growing diamonds in reactors, and there's no vault on earth big enough to hide a factory's output.
Lab-grown wholesale prices have crashed roughly 96% from their peak, down to around $100 a carat. The Knot says 61% of engagement rings sold in 2025 had lab-grown center stones, up 239% since 2020. Even De Beers' own average selling price fell 32% in a year, to $105 a carat.
So Anglo American, which owns De Beers, has written it down by $6.8 billion in two years and is now in talks to sell the whole thing for about $1 billion. This is a company that was valued over $18 billion in 2001 and $13 billion as recently as 2011.
The stones coming out of the ground are the same as ever. The only scarce thing De Beers ever owned was the marketing, and marketing doesn't survive a $12 price tag at Walmart.
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
Walmart $12 0.5ct "Created White Diamond" studs (Paris Jewelry) often fail diamond testers per reviews and are not genuine lab-grown diamonds. Certified lab-grown 0.5ct pairs list around $79-89.
walmart.com/ip/14k-White-G…
walmart.com/ip/JeenMata-Ce…
Entry level jobs pay ~30k/mth. But kids today enterprising enough to make most of gig, remote work. Kid i know in 3rd yr makes 40k/mth with multi part time jobs eg peer tutor, soc media mgr, resrch. ditched jobs if manager fussy, keeps those sparkle on resume even if unpaid. 1/2
Hates corporate setups, wants to be her own boss. Abhors idea of UPSC, as cant be ‘yes man’ babu. Uses money to ‘elevate’ life, with cabs over metro, outings wid friends, while taking money fm parents too. #futureofjobs #GenZ
ivinder gill retweeted
New ad by the Norwegian Consumer Council about the declining lifespan of products.
Top of the charts!!!
“Thank you, friends!
Proud to launch this special song on the birthday of Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri @narendramodi Ji.
Created for #SevaSankalpAbhiyan, the song captures Delhi’s youth, the changing face of education and their warmth and affection for Modi Ji.
Kudos to all the young stars for bringing this youthful composition to life.”
-CM Smt. Rekha Gupta
#HappyBdayPMModi
ivinder gill retweeted
Too much negativity about UPI charges. I for one cannot wait to pay 1% surcharge on my 50% ethanol fuel on my way to buy 90% rubber paneer
ivinder gill retweeted
More than 100,000 people in Japan are more than 100 years old.
spklr.io/6014ETefO
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The most expensive part of a hospital bill may never touch the hospital at all.
A patient admitted for care has no way of knowing whether the price on a medical consumable reflects its actual cost or a markup fixed long before it ever reached the ward. That gap in information is, at its core, a public health issue.
A survey of hospital consumables in Maharashtra found an IV infusion set with a trade price of ₹11.05 carrying a printed MRP of ₹325 ; a markup of 2,841%. A syringe procured at ₹6.75 carried an MRP of ₹57.20. A catheter procured at ₹29.41 carried an MRP of ₹310.
These are not elective purchases. Patients cannot compare prices, seek alternatives, or question a number printed on a box while receiving care and the MRP itself is often fixed upstream by manufacturers and distributors, disconnected from the trade price by a wide, unexplained margin. The result is a system where the party bearing the cost has the least information to evaluate it.
The regulatory gap is structural: scheduled medicines are capped under the Drugs (Prices Control) Order, 2013. Most medical devices and consumables are not leaving both the pricing and the information around it almost entirely unmonitored.
A review of these findings and clear guidelines on the permissible gap between trade procurement price and declared MRP have been recommended to the Department of Pharmaceuticals and the NPPA ; a step toward closing not just a pricing gap, but the information gap patients are left to bear alone.
#PublicHealth #GoodGovernance #Leadership #TukaramMundhe
moneycontrol.com/news/busine…
So well deserved. Rhys is superlative in all his works — a delight in Beast in me and fun to watch as a mayor out to hopelessly please the world in widows bay. But The Americans remains my fav! #Emmys #GOAT
Matthew Rhys made Emmys history by becoming the first person to win lead acting awards in the drama, comedy and limited series categories across a career. On Monday, he took home lead acting prizes for “The Beast in Me” and “Widow’s Bay.” nyti.ms/4j3XAQ3
What use is this post tragedy sermonising? Illegal const stands tall openly & every 6 mths there’s news of fires, collapse, basement flooding. Innocent die but no crackdown before any tragedy strikes. Only blame, bail to accused & irrevocable loss to those whose loved ones killed
ivinder gill retweeted
Yayoi Kusama, who has died aged 97, was part of the 1960s avant-garde and later became an Instagram phenomenon as one of the world’s most recognisable artists. ft.trib.al/YXxPzfA
Junk food got a whole new meaning! However the carbon from recycled plastic might have been turned into protein or fats, this is one to pass. No, thank you pls, find some other way to recycle plastic!
Cookies Made From Plastic Bottles Could Ease Food Shortages, Feed NASA Crews In Space
go.forbes.com/_Xuvdi
ivinder gill retweeted
Humanity is for the first time witnessing plants breathing.
In other words plants are conscious beings!
ivinder gill retweeted
Earth's oceans are reaching perilous new temperatures—on August 22, scientists recorded the hottest ever temperature. Experts explain how it is only going to get worse:
spklr.io/6011ERCdS
ivinder gill retweeted
Expired meat, fish & milk found in Bengaluru’s top luxury hotels.
30 teams inspected 26 three-star & five-star hotels across BBMP limits today. 35 food samples collected for lab testing.
Hotels where food was seized:
• The Lalit Ashok – 76 kg meat, 200 kg vegetables & 32 litres expired milk
• Shangri-La Bengaluru – 15 kg meat
• Four Seasons Bengaluru – 19 kg meat
• Vivanta Whitefield – 3 kg expired bakery products
• Taj Yeshwantpur – 72 kg meat/fish
• Radisson Blu (The Atria) – 105 kg expired food (50 kg chicken, 25 kg meat, 23 kg fish, 7 kg vegetables)
Violations included expired food, fungal growth, unhygienic kitchens, misbranding, FSSAI labelling violations and improper veg/non-veg storage. Notices issued; further action to follow after lab reports. #Bengaluru #FoodSafety
ivinder gill retweeted
I’ve been saying for a long time, this is going to be a ‘food price’ crisis, then a ‘food shortage’ crisis, then a ‘watching the people you love starve’ crisis.
ivinder gill retweeted
Courage:
The half-submerged tribal women of MP who lay on pyres and stood beneath nooses,
just to save their rivers, their forests, and their land.
The thousands who marched yesterday in Delhi, asking for accountability.
The girl from Bihar who boarded a crowded general-compartment of a train with 20 rupees in her pocket because she thought showing up matters.
The journalist who ran, coughed, wiped the tear gas off her eyes, and kept reporting.
The young girl, under a rain of batons, asked the police, "Am I not like your child?”
The labourer who sat in solidarity, very aware of the day’s wages he is going to lose.
The young doctors who dressed wounds while being beaten up themselves.
The rickshaw driver who ferried students to the protest for free.
The blind man who couldn’t see the crowd but handed water bottles to everyone.
The strangers who anonymously sent food and the volunteers who served.
The boy from MP, who brought peanuts and an onion in a tiffin box
to a protest that met with batons and tear gas.
The brave student who after being struck on the shin with a baton, asked for another blow.
Those who stood, when standing came at a price.
When overcome by fear, courage was the only option.
History will remember those who looked at a nailed baton in the eye and did not flinch.
Te remind us that our nation was, is and will forever be, of the people.