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Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, Bollywood stars Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai and cricketers Saurav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar are among the 10,500 guests who have been invited.

Describing the auto car finance insurance rate for the twin weddings, one Indian newspaper said it “would put a maharajah to shame”.

No expenses spared

The snazzy invitation cards have special security chips embedded in them to swipe and enter the heavily-guarded wedding venue.

Over 80 rooms and suites have been booked at a top hotel in Lucknow to house special guests - state governors, chief ministers, judges, parliamentarians and journalists, it is reported.

Every person whom I know in the industry will be attending the wedding Aishwarya Rai

The Sahara business group is also running 27 chartered flights to ferry special guests to Lucknow from all over India.

A team of crack Indian chefs will cook up a wide ranging feast that will include Indian, Chinese, Italian, Mexican and Lebanese fare.

The guests will be corporate estate finance finance hill in insurance irwin mcgraw principle real series
by a music group flown in from London and dancers choreographed by a top Bollywood dance director.

Top Bollywood filmmaker director Raj Kumar Santoshi will shoot a film on the wedding, a top art director will “supervise the sets”, and a Music Television (MTV) video jockey will anchor the programme.

Bollywood ’shutdown’

Reports from Bombay, also known as Mumbai, suggest that most of Bollywood has shut shop for four days beginning Tuesday as most of the stars are away at the lavish wedding.

Actress Aishwarya Rai told the AFP news agency that she had completed the shooting of her new film in time to take time out for the wedding.

“My family is going to Lucknow and as far as Bollywood is concerned every person whom I know in the industry will be attending the wedding,” said Rai, who is also a brand ambassador for the Sahara group.

On the sidelines of the wedding, the business group has also promised to marry off 101 couples and feed as many as 140,000 poor people across the country, one newspaper reports.

Rags to riches

Subrata Roy’s Sahara began in 1978 with three workers in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh as a small deposits para-banking business.

Today it claims to have grown into a $7bn diversified business group with interests in housing, entertainment, media and aviation.

Virtually unheard of even 15 years ago, Sahara today runs a private airline, entertainment and news television channels, a newspaper, and claims to own some 33,000 acres of real estate across India.

The group also sponsors the Indian cricket and hockey teams and is planning to move into life insurance, housing finance, consumer products, sportswear, and set up hospitals.

Subrata Roy, who calls himself the group’s “chief guardian”, is one of India’s most well-networked 1035 annuity exchange finance insurance ira transfer
counting several top Indian politicians, card estate estate finance hill in insurance irwin mcgraw powerweb principle real real series and Bollywood and cricket stars as his friends.

The 25 directors of the group include a host of Bollywood and cricket stars and former bureaucrats.

Among them are Amitabh Bachchan, Rai, former Indian cricket captain Kapil Dev and present Indian captain Saurav Ganguly.

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) demanded urgent action after visiting firms and a mystery shopping exercise.

About a third of the 45 firms surveyed sold policies on which customers could not claim or which gave limited cover.

PPI is supposed to help people continue with repayments on loans if they fall ill or lose their jobs.

Mystery shopping

This summer the FSA asked a market research company to carry out the mystery shopping survey of firms selling PPI.

This poses a serious risk to consumers. Those firms where these problems exist must take urgent action to address them Clive Briault, FSA

Those selling PPI policies with mortgages were found generally to be following the rules.

However, at about half of the remaining 30 firms examined it found evidence of considerable problems. It found they were mis-selling the policies alongside such products as credit and store cards, and secured and unsecured loans.

Clive Briault, the FSA’s managing director of retail markets said, “alternative capital finance insurance integrated management market reinsurance risk risk series through transfer wiley standards in other areas of the market, notably single premium PPI business, are generally weak”.

“Those firms where these problems exist must take urgent action to address them” he added.

Poor advice

The FSA found there was a serious risk to consumers.

In particular it discovered:

• poor disclosure of product and price details.
• the possibility that consumers may not be eligible to claim against their policies.
• that customers might not be aware they could receive little money back if they cancelled their policies early.

The FSA said advice given on buying PPI was likely to be poor.

Among the reasons were a lack of proper monitoring and training, which meant staff in around half the 30 firms in question were not competent.

But the regulator also pointed out that the use of sales commissions or bonuses to pay employees were encouraging some staff to mis-sell the policies.

Industry response

The financial services industry said it would take the FSA’s est finance financial hill in insurance international irwin management mcgraw real series
seriously.

(We are) keen to establish that the FSA’s report should not be seen as indicative of the whole industry Financial services industry

The Auto company finance insurance premium united
of British Insurers, the British Bankers Association and payment services body APACS said they were “keen to establish that the FSA’s report should not be seen as indicative of the whole industry”.

Stephen Haddrill, the ABI’s director general, added that “payment protection insurance is a valuable product. Insurers and lenders are committed to driving up selling standards.”

However, Citizens Advice, the umbrella body for the citizens advice bureaux, repeated its recent claim that the business of selling PPI policies is little more than a protection racket.

In September it launched a so-called “super complaint”, asking the Office of Fair Trading to investigate the selling of PPI.

“We badly need an official investigation of how this market is operating,” said Dan Vale, the head of policy at Citizens Advice.

“The FSA report highlights the extent to which poor sales practices are endemic within the industry.”

But he added, “the FSA report does not deal with all the issues, namely the cost of PPI and the content of the policies”.

Future action

The OFT will have to decide by December if it will accede to the super complaint.

But the FSA said it would carry out a second round of checks early next year.

It warned that the most serious cases it had uncovered would receive further investigation with possible enforcement action - which could mean hefty fines for offending firms.

To many people from the south, those with mild Liverpool and Manchester accents sound similar. They share similarities in vocabulary. The term “scally”, where much of the rest of the country opts for “chav”, is just one of many words they share.

Liverpool has perhaps the greater sense of isolation and finance insurance life premium from the rest of the country. It is much joked that some Auto company finance insurance premium united think civilisation ends at the Runcorn bridge, but the city really does look as much to the sea as it does back across the land.

When Sir Bob arrived in Manchester in the late 1960s he noticed a city already starting to arrest the decline.

“One was very aware of a city coming back up on the back of sport and the arts. In Liverpool when I went in 2000 one was aware of exactly the same thing, going through the same experience but just much later.”

Superior architecture

There are some who feel Liverpool has to strive to be like Manchester, to compete, because the alternative is doom. Manchester always seems a little surer of its place in the country.

“Liverpool has to find a new life otherwise it will simply be a derelict port,” Sir Bob adds. It has the superior architecture and the current buzz, but is still a long way from catching up.

But Liverpudlians boast of the best architecture

It would take a particularly blinkered, rose-spectacled Liverpudlian not to admit that, despite Liverpool’s furious last decade of redevelopment, their regional rivals have the drop on them economically.

One measure would be demand for office space. According to commercial agents DTZ, office space in Manchester typically rents for 28.50 per square foot per annum compared with about 21 in Liverpool. Manchester’s 19 million square foot of office space compares with Liverpool’s 3-4 million.

Mike Taylor, Oldham-born chief executive of Estate finance fundamentals hill in insurance investment irwin management mcgraw real series valuation, traces rivalry back to the days of the Manchester Ship Canal and its bypassing of Liverpool.

“It was Manchester’s response to the fact Liverpool was a world class port. The idea was to take some of that trade directly into Manchester. It’s the nature of human beings when there are two large powerful forces in a region there is bound to be some competition.”

But Angie Robinson, chief executive of Manchester Chamber of Commerce, says notions of competition, in the mind of ordinary people or of business leaders, is false.

As a port Liverpool looks abroad

“This rivalry is a bit of a myth, particularly from the business community’s point of view - they work across the whole of the North West. The important thing is that both cities are the economic powerhouses of the region, important in their own right.”

Greater Manchester has luxury, like the Lowry Hotel, which Liverpool is striving for. It’s a contrast from the 19th Century when Liverpool boasted the grander buildings. The stunning stock of Georgian and Victorian buildings that are retained make Liverpool the more popular location for shooting films, but Manchester is the media powerhouse soon to boast a new media village and the historic base of Granada.

On the music front can be found the keenest rivalry outside football. Liverpool, as you are unlikely to be allowed to forget, had the Beatles, while Manchester boasted Joy Division, New Order, the Smiths, the Stone Roses and Oasis. Now Liverpool has a new wave of bands led by the Zutons, the Coral and the Dead 60s. But Manchester’s greatest musical cheerleader, the sadly departed Tony Wilson, had a lot of time for Liverpool. The rivalry is the stuff of heated pub conversations, but hardly summons vitriol.

That vitriol is found in football alone. Go outside it, and the historic rivalry is merely that, old battles over commerce and a little economic envy.

I grew up in Liverpool possibly the greatest sign that there is rivalry can be found in the vocabularly of the place. I remember at school that the very, very worst insult you could hurl at anyone would be to call them a ‘manc’. You could question their parenthood, or suggest you had close relations with their sister, or insinuate what their gran was up to with the bin man and it would all be a laugh. But if you called someone a ‘Manc’ - well that was verbally going nuclear, such strong an insult would only ever result in a fist fight.
G McEvoy, Brum

Not being from either city, but having lived in both, I have to agree with some of the stereotypes. Manchester, to my mind, is a much more dangerous city - in addition to the drugs and gangs, there’s a real feeling of the potential for violence in most of the city centre bars.

Rather than look to New York, I believe Liverpool takes a huge amount from Ireland - it gives me a similar “feel” to Belfast - the people and humour are alike. I have not lived anywhere else that has a more defined pride and local identity as to “being from Liverpool”. The same cannot be said for Manchester. Liverpool is on the upslope, whereas Manchester has grown too fast creating a very defined division between rich and poor, with the associated social problems.

SleepyD, Swindon, Wilts

You can’t even compare the two seriously. Manchester is a major international city, Liverpool is a jealous historic remnant. Facing Belfast (not NY as claimed) is hardly a reason to call it great. Liverpool’s only major export since slavery was the Beatles and they recorded all their albums in London while living in the South East. This is like comparing London and Slough because The Office was based in the latter - it’s nonsense.
James, UK

Nowhere else in the country can boast 2 genuinely world class cities, other than the north west. Im a proud Manc, but admit that both cities are indeed great, however, you’d have to say that Manchester is slightly ahead, and is indeed the country’s #2 city behind London, and as with London, is the only city that boasts a ‘Greater’ prefix when describing the general area in which the city is located. Manchester is indeed the capital of the North however, and not many people can argue this.

Liverpool isnt too far behind though, and being a proud northerner, Im very pleased to say that out of the country’s top 6 cities (London, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Birmingham and Newcastle), 5 of them are in the north.. if you count Birmingham as northern! The bottom half of the country only has London, and nothing else in terms of major, important cities. Greater London just happens to be as big as the other 5 put together!

Chris Handley, Manchester, England

In recent years Manchester has had the commonwealth games, Imperial War Museum North, the Trafford Centre, the Lowry, Urbis, rebuilt Picadilly station and the Bridgewater Hall. Liverpool has the Yahoo finance insurance auto sbc. Enough said.
Matthew Smith, Manchester, UK

Which is your favourite city, Liverpool or Manchester? Erm, neither, they’re both ferociously awful. Birmingham, however, is slightly better than either. Although I don’t expect this comment to be published as the BBC apparently refuse to accept the existence of what is legally, culturally, and historically the Second City.
Andy Twiss, Birmingham, UK

Both cities are rich in heritage and everyone gloats how both cities are doing so amazing, (Manchester especially after the 1996 IRA bomb), but I can’t help wondering if we are just applauding the Londonesque evolution of these two cities, rather than celebrating the history and influence they have carried to the rest of the world.
Jim Humphreys, Bury

If you want a really unbiased view ask a Brummie! Manchester is clearly a bigger city with more economic clout at the moment. But Liverpool, though clearly shabby in places, has a romance that is hard to beat. Pier Head and the Mersey are magnificent. I spent a long weekend in Liverpool in February, full of art, music, food and beer (latter at the amazing “Phil”). I would never stay in Manchester in the same way.
Adam Green, Ludlow

Is it any wonder why we in Liverpool have to put up with this type of one-sided editorial when the BBC and Granada are based there. The local evening news on both channels is riddled with biased material dotted with ‘the clip’ of 20 year footage of the so called “Riots”. The Mail on Sunday published a piece about drug taking in Manchester parks with a photo and caption of Calderstones Park in Liverpool, one of the best parks in the city. As Mail on Sunday readers only look at the pictures it left us looking in a bad light. Oh yes the Mail was always based in Manchester.
Steve Penney, Liverpool UK

Manchester has one thing over Liverpool - rain.
Gerry, Liverpool

I am intensely proud of being Scouse wherever I go in the world. I love Liverpool and miss it now I live in Ireland. It is distinct from the rest of the U.K, the people are open, bright and creative, which I think stems from our geographic position - looking out to other lands. We are not introspective, which is how I feel Manchester is. Scousers do stick-up for eachother because we recognise our shared heritage and the adversities we have had to face, and I think a lot of people from elsewhere, particularly Manchester, feel envious of this solidarity and so are quick to jump on the “self-pity city” bandwagon.
J Jones, Hacketstown, Republic of Ireland

I’m from Liverpool, still living here, and I commute to Manchester to study/research at Manchester uni. I also used to be in a band, gigging around the region, and in both pursuits I’ve found that the Liverpool-Manchester rivalry doesn’t really go beyond a few opening lines of small-talk and the occasional bit of friendly banter. I think most people realise that the so-called ‘rivalry’ is more of a conversation starter than a precursor to any hostilities. The football, of course, is a different matter, although you will find that most scousers don’t mind Man City; the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Matthew Mahoney, Liverpool

I take it that Finlo Rohrer is from Manchester!?

Dave Carroll, Liverpool

Tony Wilson had it about right when he suggested we Mancunians and the Liverpudlians should probably reserve most of our vitriol for London and the South. Whilst I’m no great lover of Liverpool, it’s obvious that our two cities have far more in common with each other than we commonly admit. Manchester has been quicker off the blocks in redeveloping itself and Liverpool is to a certain extent playing catch up. I wish them good luck - anything that breaks up the hegemony of power concentrated in London is a good thing.
Steeley, Salford, Manchester

I think these two great cities have more in common than some people would like to admit. In the week of Tony Wilson’s funeral I thought it very apt that there was a large floral tribute for Tony from the music lovers of Liverpool. Now as for the football, that’s a differnt kettle of fish…
Nigel Kavanagh, Amsterdam Holland

I was born and raised in Liverpool, love the city and support LFC, but now, after a few years in London, have lived in Manchester for 6 years. Much as I will always be a Scouser, I am proud of what a great city Manchester is and what it stands for in the country. I tend to think of myself now as a supporter of the North (and the North West in particular) as opposed to the South (and London specifically). Certainly you are right that from a business perspective, there is no rivalry between the 2 cities. I think that, with the exception of football, most Scousers and Mancs would say the rivalry is with the South rather than each other.

Steve Morris, Manchester

As someone working in Manchester but having family from Liverpool (although a southerner born in Bristol), I think much of the rivalry dates from the building of the Ship Canal, which took away much of Liverpool’s trade. Many things called “Manchester” are not actually in Manchester at all. The docks and racecourse are in Salford, while Man United play in Trafford. The important thing now is that the north-west lags behind the south-east in investment, particularly in transport.
Geoff Kerr, Todmorden, UK

“Some Liverpudlians think civilisation ends at the Runcorn bridge.” So does the rest of the country, ha ha!
Mike, Crawley

I am from Merseyside but now I live on the Manchester border. Manchester has an amazing (if misplaced) sense of its own self-importance. This is typified by their ill-advised Olympic bids. The rest of the country (and world) sniggered at this folly. Imagine Manchester trying to compete with proper cities with a real world-wide heritage. Manchester’s reputation is built on hype and spin. It’s okay as a regional centre but hardly a world-class destination. Manchester thinks it’s the greatest city on the planet whereas Liverpool KNOWS it is.
Marc, Heaton Moor

The full saying is “Salford Lads, Manchester Men and Liverpool Gentlemen”. Liverpool does not have to ’strive to be like Manchester’, it is by far the better environment. I worked in Manchester for a year, and after three weeks my vehicle was stolen - that has never happened in Liverpool! I always found the vitriol to be more from Mancunians than Scousers - maybe it’s jealousy?
George Birchall, Liverpool

Do you actually get paid for this Finlo? Its clear where your preference lies even in the subtlety of the dark clouds over the Liver Buildings. Next time why dont you compare and contrast equally instead of inciting hatred between cities.
Phil

As cities, they can not be compared and never should have been. Both have qualities which make them unique and it is like comparing Men and Women - two cities seperated by 30 miles with very different characters - Manchester is from Mars and Liverpool is from Venus!!
Helen, Liverpool

I live just across the water (the Mersey) I work in Liverpool. Knowing that we have the Capital of culture next year, yuo can see the City is alive with the buzz of builders, cranes, renovations and cleanups. The City is preparing itself for the biggest party of its life. However, I cant help but think its not quite living up to its full potential. It location has more to give than most cities. It has distinctive architecture and land marks, and could develop into the next cutural centre of northern europe. What has instead been built with the money of the investment is shops…. hardly cultural.
Russell Jacques, Wirral

Black armband city vs the capital of provincialism - who cares?
Tom , Brum

The Coral are not from Liverpool - they are from Hoylake on the Wirral - whilst this is still classed as Merseyside today, it was always historically Cheshire. I am not a mere West Wirral snob trying to down liverpool, I am merely seeking to raise the profile of the port of birkenhead and the Wirral as a whole which seems to be regarded by many as part of Liverpool. And just for the record, I have lived in Manchester for a while and found no malice or ill will from any Mancunian!
Colin Auty, Birkenhead

I’m from Widnes, which is exactly in the middle of Liverpool and Manchester, and I grew up supporting LFC (and am still a massive fan). But I moved to Manchester 18 years ago, since then I’ve picked up a manc accent. This makes going to Anfield an interesting experience, and watching LFC games in a MCR pub equally tricky. To answer your question, both cities are my favorites. Were lucky in the North West to have 2 such powerfully iconic cities, and its the tension between them that has bred such success. And Im not talking football.
scouse manc wooly back, Manchester

Yes Manchester does have the edge over Liverpool. You get this sense in Liverpool of exclusivity - if you are not a scouser you are most definitely an outsider. Not to say Liverpool isnt friendly - it can be - but it seems sort of stuck somewhere in the last century - perhaps not hooked on grief but slow to change and wary of the outside world. Manchester however is most definitely looking outward and for this reason deserves the title of second city.
scott blockley, London

I’m pretty sure this article has been written by a southerner in a London office who seems to have no real experience of either city.
Nicola, Manchester

I have buy to let properties in both cities although I live in the South. My heart votes Livepool but my head says Manchester as it is at least 5 years ahead in terms of ambition and development. Both cities are on the up but I find that businesses in Liverpool are less pro-active and need more prodding to get things done. Everything I try and do in Liverpool is an effort, but in Manchester business is done without too much hassle.
Charlie, Guildford

As a born and bred Scouser who has lived in the South West for the past 8 years I still call Liverpool ‘home’. Liverpool and Manchester are very different places, but at the same time they have to stick together to defend themselves from the abuse both cities receive from our Southern countrymen. Most people who criticise the North, and especially Liverpool, have never been there, but still think it’s okay to “have a dig”! There is of course the big football rivalry between the two cities, but I think that’s where it stops. They are both proud cities with great people - something the whinging Southerners could learn from!
Matt, Bath, Somerset

On Merseyside they say that Liverpool is England’s second city; in Manchester they know that London is.
Martyn Wilson, Malvern