Will Savjibhai give Diwali bonus?

Last year, this time of the year, we in India and around the world, could not help but show wonder and amazement at the generosity of a diamond merchant who had gifted his entire staff a Diwali bonanza of cars, apartments and jewellery. To be precise, this Surat based diamond merchant gave away - 491 cars to employees who did not have  a car. About 200 employees who did not have a house got flats from their boss while nearly 525 employees were given gold and diamond jewellery. The name of the company was Hari Krishna Exports and its owner is Savjibhai Dholakia.

This is one of the largest diamond companies of India and it is headquartered in a 25,000 sq. feet office in BKC, Mumbai. This is the same company, which in May this year was in the news and is now facing criminal charges for rejecting a job aspirant's application for being a Muslim.

Given the plight of the entire Surat diamond merchants this year, we wonder whether he will be generous this year too? Till date, more than 5,000 Surat polishers (this city polishes about 80% of the world's diamonds) have lost their jobs and more are expected to be axed.  News is that Chinese customers have almost stopped buying, there is huge inventory of unsold jewellery and gems and many Chinese jewellers have also said to have defaulted on deals worth millions of dollars.