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A steep drop in saffron supplies from Iran amid increasing geopolitical tensions in West Asia is benefitting Indian producers and traders of the spice, one of the costliest in the world. Prices of Indian saffron, which is cultivated in parts of Jammu and Kashmir, have increased by more than 20% at the wholesale level and about 27% in retail stores in the past month, producers and traders said. The best quality Indian saffron is now selling for Rs 3.5-3.6 lakh a kg in the wholesale market, compared with Rs 2.8-3 lakh before the start of the latest strife in West Asia, they said. It can cost as high as Rs 4.95 lakh a kg in retail, or the price of nearly 70 grams of gold at Friday’s rate of Rs 72,633 for 10 grams. Iran, with annual output of around 430 tonnes, accounts for 90% of the global production of saffron — known for its subtle flavour and used in food, cosmetics and medicines. 110019543“Absence of Iran in the global markets has pushed up the Indian saffron prices. India also imports saffron from Iran. That too has trickled down after the geopolitical tensions started,” said Noor ul Amin Bin Khalik, owner of Amin-Bin-Khalik Co in Srinagar. “Prices are going up almost every day.” Kashmiri saffron, which received the Geographical Indication (GI) tag in 2020, is considered to be of superior quality. However, it’s not even producing 3 tonnes, less than a third of the output 13 years ago, against an annual demand of 60-65 tonnes. Nilesh P Mehta, cofounder of Chennaibased Bell Saffron, said he has never witnessed such a spike in saffron prices. Mehta’s family has been in the business for more than 50 years. “The Middle East tension, coupled with lower production, has impacted the prices of saffron… Also, the GI tag has made Indian saffron costlier in the world markets,” he said.Worries at home:India ships saffron to the UAE, the US, Australia, Nepal and Canada. A gram of kesar, as saffron is known in Hindi, comprises the filaments taken from 160-180 flowers. Growing the plants and harvesting is a labour-intensive process. Apart from Pampore district, saffron is also grown in Budgam and on the periphery of Srinagar and the Kishtwar district of Jammu. The crop year starts in October. Production of saffron has been dwindling over the years. The Union Territory’s saffron output decreased from 8 tonnes in 2010-11 to 2.6 tonnes in 2023-24, a decline of about 67.5%, union agriculture and farmers welfare minister Arjun Munda said in February, citing estimates from the Office of Financial Commissioner (Revenue) of Jammu and Kashmir. “However, during the past year, from 2022-23 to 2023-24, saffron production has marginally increased by 4%,” he had said. Senior trade officials, who did not want to be named, blamed new cement factories that have come up in Pampore for the fall in saffron production in the region. Dust and pollution harm the delicate flowers, and the crop can no longer be grown in the vicinity — thus hurting both quantity and quality. Farmers in the surrounding areas have either sold their properties to these businesses or left them fallow, people in the trade said. Erratic weather conditions only exacerbate the worries. There are several types of saffron available in the Kashmir valley, including Mongra, which is the darkest and rich in aroma and flavour. The Lacha variety comes with both red and yellow parts. Zarda, another type of saffron, is used in face packs, beauty creams and moisturisers.

New York: Jim Simons, the mathematician-investor who created what many in finance consider the world's greatest moneymaking machine at his secretive firm, Renaissance Technologies, has died. He was 86. He died today in New York City, according to his charitable foundation, which didn't cite a cause.In turning from academia to investing as he entered his 40s, Simons eschewed standard practices of money managers in favor of quantitative analysis - finding patterns in data that predicted price changes. His technique was so successful that he became known as the Quant King.At Renaissance, located about 60 miles east of Manhattan in quiet East Setauket, New York, Simons avoided employing Wall Street veterans. Instead he sought out mathematicians and scientists, including astrophysicists and code breakers, who could ferret out usable investment information in the terabytes of data his firm sucked in each day on everything from sunspots to overseas weather.Over more than three decades, his returns consistently trounced markets even as computer power got cheaper and competitors tried their best to mimic Renaissance's success by building their own complex algorithms to run their funds."There are just a few individuals who have truly changed how we view the markets," Theodore Aronson, founder of AJO Vista, a quantitative money management firm, told Bloomberg Markets magazine in 2008. "John Maynard Keynes is one of the few. Warren Buffett is one of the few. So is Jim Simons."A onetime code breaker for the US government, Simons refused to give specifics about how he produced more than four times the return of the S&P 500 Index in his most famous fund, Medallion. From 1988 through 2023, the fund generated an astounding average annual return of almost 40%, even after hefty fees, turning Simons and as many as three colleagues into billionaires.He was worth an estimated $31.8 billion, making him the 49th-richest person in the world, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.Clients and insiders paid handsomely to entrust their funds to Simons. He eventually raised fees to 5% of assets and 44% of profits, among the industry's highest. Believing that the algorithms the firm used to trade stocks, bonds and commodities wouldn't work if Medallion got too large, he soon started limiting access to the fund.In 1993, Simons stopped accepting new money from Medallion clients, and in 2005, he kicked out outsiders entirely, allowing only employees to invest. He returned profits every year, limiting the size of the fund to around $10 billion.He opened more pedestrian funds for the general public. At times, the disparity in their performance was dramatic. In 2020, the Medallion fund gained 76% while the public funds racked up double-digit losses.Simons' talents extended to knowing how to inspire his often quirky employees - 300 in all - who came to Renaissance. The complicated problem of figuring out why markets rise and fall was one draw, as was the high pay and the sense of community he created."It's an open atmosphere," Simons said in a rare speech in 2010 at his alma mater, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "We make sure everyone knows what everyone else is doing, the sooner the better. That's what stimulates people."He played the benevolent father figure, organizing company trips to Bermuda, the Dominican Republic, Florida and Vermont - and encouraged employees to bring their families.Company lore is that on one of the firm's ski trips, Simons, a lifetime smoker, bought an insurance policy for a local restaurant so he wouldn't have to forgo his beloved Merits.Many competitors tried and failed to replicate the Medallion fund's secret sauce. After Bernard Madoff's money-making success was exposed as a Ponzi scheme in 2008, the US Securities and Exchange Commission came calling at Renaissance, Simons said at another MIT gathering in 2019."They did study us," he said. "Of course, they didn't find anything."

A case of sexual harassment has been registered against BJP leader G Devaraje Gowda from Hassan, who had written to the saffron party leadership before it formed an alliance with the JD(S), flagging Prajwal Revanna's alleged sexual abuse of several women, police said on Friday. The FIR was registered against Devaraje Gowda, who is an advocate, on April 1 but it has come to light only recently after his whistleblowing in the Prajwal Revanna case. Devaraje Gowda was the one who had alerted the BJP leadership last year about Prajwal Revanna's alleged sexual abuse of several women, and cautioned the saffron party not to give a Lok Sabha ticket to the JD(S) MP from Hassan. Prajwal Revanna is the grandson of former prime minister and JD(S) patriarch H D Deve Gowda, and is the BJP-JD(S) Lok Sabha poll candidate from Hassan. The BJP entered into an alliance with the JD(S) last year. Devaraje Gowda, who contested the 2023 assembly election against Prajwal's father and Holenarasipura MLA H D Revanna -- also accused in a case of molestation and another for abduction -- had blamed the Congress leadership in Karnataka for leaking the sexual abuse videos. Devaraje Gowda has been booked on a complaint by a 36-year-old woman from Hassan district, who alleged that he molested her on the pretext of helping her sell her property. The BJP leader was not available for comment.