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Extravagant Wedding Celebrations for the Son of Asia’s Richest Man Conclude With a Reception

A wedding reception on Sunday wrapped up the monthslong celebrations as the youngest son of Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s richest man, married his longtime girlfriend with a price tag running into the millions. - The AP.
A wedding reception on Sunday wrapped up the monthslong celebrations as the youngest son of Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s richest man, married his longtime girlfriend with a price tag running into the millions. - The AP.
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Extravagant Wedding Celebrations for the Son of Asia’s Richest Man Conclude With a Reception

A wedding reception on Sunday wrapped up the monthslong celebrations as the youngest son of Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s richest man, married his longtime girlfriend with a price tag running into the millions. - The AP.
A wedding reception on Sunday wrapped up the monthslong celebrations as the youngest son of Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s richest man, married his longtime girlfriend with a price tag running into the millions. - The AP.

A wedding reception on Sunday wrapped up the monthslong celebrations as the youngest son of Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s richest man, married his longtime girlfriend with a price tag running into the millions.

The newlyweds were cheered by friends and relatives at Mumbai’s Jio World Drive -- a convention center built and owned by the Ambani family — as part of the “Mangal Utsav” (a festival of Bliss), which marked what many have dubbed as the wedding of the year.

Anant Ambani tied the knot with Radhika Merchant, daughter of pharma tycoons Viren and Shaila Merchant. The wedding rituals, including exchanging garlands by the couple and walking around the sacred fire, began Friday and were completed early Saturday.

Former British Prime Ministers Boris Johnson and Tony Blair, as well as Kim and Khloe Kardashian, Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas, American wrestler and actor John Cena, Bollywood superstars Amitabh Bachchan, Shahrukh Khan and Salman Khan were among the celebrities who attended the ceremonies on Friday and Saturday.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi blessed the newlyweds at a Saturday reception organized by the Ambanis, highlighting the billionaire’s rising clout.

“This is the final and the most auspicious ceremony and the last wedding in our family,” The Times of India newspaper quoted Mukesh Ambani. The Ambanis didn’t say how much they spent on the festivities that have been going on for months, The AP reported.

During a three-day pre-wedding celebration in March, Rihanna and Akon performed for a star-studded 1,200-person guest list.

A four-day European cruise in May featured on-deck concerts from the Backstreet Boys and Pitbull, followed by a masquerade ball where Katy Perry sang. At last week’s traditional music night in Mumbai Justin Bieber belted out his music hits.

The groom’s father, Mukesh Ambani, is the world’s ninth-richest man, with a net worth of $116 billion, according to Forbes. He is the richest person in Asia. His Reliance Industries is a conglomerate reporting over $100 billion in annual revenue, with interests that include petrochemicals, oil and gas, telecoms and retail.

The Ambani family owns, among other assets, a 27-story family compound in Mumbai worth $1 billion. The building contains three helipads, a 160-car garage and a private movie theater.

The groom, 29-year-old Anant, oversees the conglomerate’s renewable and green energy expansion. He also runs a 3,000-acre (about 1,200-hectare) animal rescue center in Gujarat state’s Jamnagar, the family’s hometown.

The bride, also 29, is the daughter of pharmaceutical tycoon Viren Merchant and is the marketing director for his company, Encore Healthcare, according to Vogue.

Ambani’s critics say his company has relied on political connections during Congress Party-led governments in the 1970s and ’80s, and under

 

 

 

 

 

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Varieties

Wreck Discovered of French Steamship that Sank in Atlantic in 1856

People watch the Cunard flagship Queen Mary 2 navigating towards Liverpool, on September 6, 2024 to celebrate the milestone of its 400th transatlantic crossing. (Photo by Paul ELLIS / AFP)
People watch the Cunard flagship Queen Mary 2 navigating towards Liverpool, on September 6, 2024 to celebrate the milestone of its 400th transatlantic crossing. (Photo by Paul ELLIS / AFP)
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Wreck Discovered of French Steamship that Sank in Atlantic in 1856

People watch the Cunard flagship Queen Mary 2 navigating towards Liverpool, on September 6, 2024 to celebrate the milestone of its 400th transatlantic crossing. (Photo by Paul ELLIS / AFP)
People watch the Cunard flagship Queen Mary 2 navigating towards Liverpool, on September 6, 2024 to celebrate the milestone of its 400th transatlantic crossing. (Photo by Paul ELLIS / AFP)

A US dive team has discovered the wreck of a French steamship, Le Lyonnais, that sank in the Atlantic Ocean in 1856 after a "hit-and-run" collision with an American sailing vessel, claiming 114 lives.

Le Lyonnais, which was built in 1855 and was considered state-of-the-art at the time, was returning to France after completing its maiden voyage from Le Havre to New York when the disaster occurred.

Jennifer Sellitti of Atlantic Wreck Salvage, a New Jersey-based company, said a team on the dive boat D/V Tenacious discovered the wreckage of Le Lyonnais last month after a two-decade search, Agence France Presse reported.

Sellitti said divers positively identified the ship in waters 200 miles (320 kilometers) off of New Bedford, Massachusetts, in an area known as the Georges Bank. They are not revealing the exact location for now.

"She certainly doesn't look as good as she used to," Sellitti told AFP. "She was really broken apart.

"The North Atlantic is a brutal place to be a shipwreck -- storms, tides," she said. "The Nantucket shoals are known for shifting sands that just completely bury wrecks."

Sellitti said measurements of an engine cylinder were key to identifying the vessel.

The iron-hulled Le Lyonnais, which had both sails and a steam engine, was built by a British shipmaker, Laird & Sons, for Compagnie Franco-Americaine to provide passenger and mail service across the Atlantic.

"The 1850s was the beginning of the transition from sail to steam," Sellitti said. "This was an early attempt by France to have its first successful passenger line."

Le Lyonnais had sailed to New York carrying cargo and mail, she said, and was returning to Le Havre with its first passengers, most of whom were French.

- Hit-and-run -

On the night of November 2, 1856, Le Lyonnais, carrying 132 passengers and crew, collided with the Adriatic, an American barque which was sailing from Maine to Georgia.

Jonathan Durham, the Adriatic's captain, in a statement published in the November 19, 1856 edition of The New York Times, said it was around 11:00 pm on a starlit but "hazy" night when Le Lyonnais "suddenly changed her course, which rendered a collision inevitable."

Durham said the Adriatic suffered significant damage but managed to make it to Gloucester, Massachusetts two days later while Le Lyonnais continued on its way.

The French ship had, in fact, suffered extensive damage -- a hole at the water line and another one lower, probably near its coal bunkers, Sellitti said.

It sank several days later. The handful of survivors were picked up by another ship.

Sellitti, whose book about the incident, "The Adriatic Affair: A Maritime Hit-and-Run Off the Coast of Nantucket," comes out in February 2025, said the sinking of Le Lyonnais was "a really big deal at the time."

The American captain was arrested and put on trial in France, she said, and the collision raised a number of novel maritime liability questions such as what happens when a sailing vessel meets a steamship at sea.

The disaster, which is mentioned in Jules Verne's novel "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea," was the focus of much international attention, she said, but when the US Civil War broke out in 1861 "everybody stopped talking about this and went on to the Civil War."