NAKARAJAN

THE STORY OF KOHI-NOOR ,  HOW IT WAS BOUGHT OR CEASED Lahore’s exiled prince A young Maharajah Daleep Singh The fascinating tale of Maharaja Daleep Singh who relinquished the Koh-i-Noor to become the most prominent fixture in Queen Victoria’s court. But his Indian past came back to haunt him, writes Ammar Ali Qureshi Maharaja Ranjit Singh is arguably the most remarkable figure in Punjab’s history. His son and last ruler of the Sikh Empire, Daleep Singh, is perhaps the most tragic. Ranjit succeeded his father as head of a small confederacy at the age of ten and, owing to his military genius, became the ruler of Punjab when he was twenty-one. He turned the tide of history by taking the battle to the land of the invaders on the western front, and conquered them; His empire, which lasted for fifty years from 1799 to 1849, stretched from the southern districts of Punjab to Afghanistan in the west Kashmir (which also included Ladakh and Gilgit and Baltistan) in...

FATHER MAHARAJA ,OWNER OF KOHI-NOOR  LOST IT TO ELIZABETH DAUGHTER BAMBA DIED OF PENURY   ON 1957 MARCH 10 Maharaja Ranjit Singh Princess Bamba, the Maharajah's  eldest daughter The dazzle of Maharaja Ranjit Singh's court was a great attraction for European artists. The Russian prince and artist Alexis Soltykoff wrote, "This morning, the King gave us a state audience. What a sight! I could scarcely believe my eyes. Everything glittered with precious stones and the brightest colours arranged in harmonious combinations.  The green garden was decorated by a huge crowd of Sikhs in yellow, red, rose, white, gold, silver, green, lilac and azure, all armed and strikingly arrayed, some of them being in coats of mail In the midst of this bevy was the King, coming to meet us, a big stoutish man of forty, covered with the most beautiful jewels in the world.  On his right arm was the Koh-i-Nur, the finest diam...