Nah, not just temperature and pressure
The hardest material in the world is known as the ultimate gift of the strongest human emotion - love and commitment. Even today’s millennials crave for Cartier’s distinctive diamond love bracelet, made popular by Kylie Jenner. Or Tiffany’s yellow diamonds, which became a rage since Audrey Hepburn wore them or more recently when Kylie’s sister, Kendall Jenner endorsed them.?
Companies make their well crafted diamonds more expensive by having royalty and celebrities wear their brands. They even go on to destroy their own merchandise (a common luxury industry tactic) to create the illusion of scarcity and prevent items from ending up on the second-hand market.?
They have always been coupled with thoughts of romance and legend. But technically they are valued by 4Cs: Colour, Clarity, Cut and Carat.
Diamonds are liked by the young, or make the wearer feel youthful. But they themselves are not baby rocks. Most natural diamonds have ages between 1 billion and 3.5 billion years. Most were formed at depths between 150 and 250 kilometres in the Earth's mantle, although a few have come from as deep as 800 kilometres. Under high pressure and temperature, carbon-containing fluids dissolved various minerals and replaced them with diamonds. They are the Carbon that got aligned perfectly, otherwise they would have become coal.?
Until the 18th century, India was thought to be the only source of diamonds. Then in the late 1800s African prominence rose as a source of diamonds. In 1947, the year in which India got independence,? DeBeers coined the slogan “A diamond is forever”. And the mining continued to provide dividends to DeBeers in Africa.?
But too often, the world’s diamond mines produce not only diamonds – but also civil wars, violence, worker exploitation, environmental degradation, and unspeakable human suffering.
Blood diamond, also called conflict diamond, as defined by the United Nations (UN), is any diamond that is mined in areas controlled by forces opposed to the legitimate, internationally recognised government of a country and that is sold to fund military action against that government.?
Three specific conflicts—in Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Sierra Leone—directed world attention to the destructive role of diamonds, though the problem arose in other countries as well.?
But all’s not that bad with countries mining diamonds.? Diamonds have transformed Botswana, a landlocked country in Southern Africa with 70% of its territory being the Kalahari desert.?
In 1966 when Botswana gained independence it had minimal literacy and widespread poverty with an average per-capita income of just $83. Botswana has produced more than 728 million carats of rough diamonds since operations began there in 1971 and is the source of many of the world’s largest and most beautiful diamonds. The revenue raised from selling these precious stones has gone into improving the lives of Botswana’s small population of 2 million people.?
Botswana's sharp economic record compared to some of its neighbours has been built on a foundation of diamond mining, prudent fiscal policies, international financial and technical assistance, and a cautious foreign policy.?
It is rated as the least corrupt country in Africa in the Corruption Perceptions Index by international corruption watchdog Transparency International. It has the fourth highest gross national income per capita in purchasing power in Africa and above the world average.
Much of this income benefits citizens through free education, free healthcare, an expansion of local jobs in the diamond industry, and plans for a more diversified economic future. This has resulted in per capita income increasing from USD 83 in 1966 to USD 15,000+ in 2020.
Last month, the diamond firm Debswana announced the discovery in Botswana of a 1,098-carat stone that it described as the third largest of its kind in the world. It is only behind in size from the 3,106-carat Cullinan found in South Africa in 1905 and the 1,109-carat Lesedi La Rona discovered in Botswana in 2015.
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So the strongest thing in the world, diamonds in themselves alone are not the provider of power or vulnerability. Unless things around them work well, they may end up being the reason for exploitation.? Many brilliant ideas, initiatives, which have gone through rigour of internal mental tests and validations, die in our office environment because of insecurity, politics or lack of understanding of them. Thus,? it becomes very important to provide the environment that encourages miners to put in hard work, without them feeling exploited, so that diamonds can come out and become a source of the good for all, rather for the unabashed benefit of few.?
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Very insightful!
Chief Design and Sustainability Officer @ Godrej Properties Limited
3 年Great one Vivek!
Data & AI Sales Specialist @ Google | VC Relationships - Google for Startups
3 年Another Diamond from you - Simply loved it. Waiting for the next one