Hulleye Comes By!

You’d never know it if you saw what was ending up in your landfill. As it turns out, Americans waste an astounding amount of food — an estimated 27 percent of the food available for consumption, according to a government study — and it happens at the supermarket, in restaurants and cafeterias and in your very own kitchen. It works out to about a pound of food every day for every American.

Grocery stores discard products because of spoilage or minor cosmetic blemishes. Restaurants throw away what they don’t use. And consumers toss out everything from bananas that have turned brown to last week’s Chinese leftovers. In 1997, in one of the few studies of food waste, the Department of Agriculture estimated that two years before, 96.4 billion pounds of the 356 billion pounds of edible food in the United States was never eaten. Fresh produce, milk, grain products and sweeteners made up two-thirds of the waste. An update is under way.

A grandson of the last ruler of the Indian princely state of Hyderabad has joined the claim for a share of a fortune held in a London bank since 1948.

As Sir Osman Ali Khan, the absolute ruler of India’s largest princely state of Hyderabad deposited one million pounds in to the National Westminster Bank - he pondered whether his mostly Muslim subjects should join India or Pakistan. The amount which was deposited in August 1948 was frozen a month later when Indian forces annexed Hyderabad and the Nizam’s finance minister tried to transfer it, without his permission, to the new Pakistani High Commissioner in London.

The money, which has swelled to 30 million pounds, has been claimed ever since by India, Pakistan and the heirs of the Nizam, who reputedly sired 100 illegitimate sons by 86 mistresses. It is only now, after 60 years of family feuds and legal wrangling, that India has agreed to begin negotiations on an out-of-court settlement with Pakistan and the Nizam’s descendants.

According to the BBC, the best known claimant to the fortune is 66-year old Mukarram Jah, the Nizam’s first grandson and technically the heir to the throne. He currently lives in a small apartment in Istanbul after spending several years squandering much of his initial inheritance of land, jewels and a rusting collection of antique cars, on a sheep farm in Australia. An article in The Guardian states that Mukarram Jah is now so poor that he had been unable to hire a lawyer to handle his case.

Prince Jah could receive as much as 20 per cent of the money, with India and Pakistan dividing the remainder. However, since the state of Hyderabad no longer exists, his brother, sister and cousin are also expected to stake a claim - as are his former wives, one of whom is a former Miss Turkey. Then there are the estimated 470 sons, daughters, grandsons and granddaughters from the Nizam’s various mistresses.

In any event, it appears that in a case which has taken over 60 years to begin, it might just take an equal number of years to finally settle.