<p class="drop-cap">If you want to write a story about a party town, Sunday is not the night to plan your visit. Even so, this story begins exactly there, at around 9 p.m. in late March, two years after the pandemic started.</p><p>Such was the hour at which I found myself standing at the entrance to Bangla Road in <keyword id="13567218" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="phuket" source="Orion">Phuket</keyword>, the biggest party street on the biggest island in <keyword id="11906678" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="thailand" source="Orion">Thailand</keyword>. The #Banglaroad hashtag on Instagram offers a pretty good sense of what you can expect from the area: bright lights, small outfits, and a general Vegas-meets-Jersey-shore vibe. I had booked a reporting trip to Phuket to write about hotels, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/phuket-luxury-real-estate-market-post-pandemic-booming-2022-4">real estate</a>, and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/phuket-missing-russian-tourists-not-that-badly-war-impact-thailand-2022-4">Russian money</a>. Where better, I figured, to write about how tourism has changed than in the heart — or is it the underbelly? — of Thailand tourism itself?</p><p>I had arrived on the island nine hours earlier, gotten a PCR swab in the airport, and posted up in my hotel room until my test results came back negative, as required under Thailand's entry <a href="https://www.thaiembassy.com/travel-to-thailand/thailand-travel-restrictions">restrictions</a>. When I finally stepped out at night, I was struck by the smell of booze and salt. </p><p>In calf-length leggings, running shoes, sans sunburn, and stone-cold sober, it's hard to say exactly which part of me was most out of place on the party scene of Bangla Road. But I pulled on my mask and flashed my wrist for a temperature screening (both required to enter the street) and stepped into the fray.</p><p>To stand at the corner of any intersection in Bangla Road is to be hit by a cacophony of sounds.</p><p>One bar had projected Lady Gaga's disco-themed music video onto its walls. At a club called New York Live Music, a female singer was scream-singing "Edge of Glory." (It was a big night for Lady Gaga.) Down the road, yet another song blared from a multi-floor bar called the Tiger Club, which featured enormous, plastic statues of tigers in various stages of mid-pounce.</p><p>From a dark corner between buildings, the glow of a cigarette caught my eye. Two police officers were surveying the scene.</p><p>Women, some young and some not so young, were lined up on the sides of the road. Some were waving to passersby and others standing more vacantly, swaying along placidly to the tune of something.</p><p>The city was ready to entertain its guests. The only thing missing was those guests, or the critical mass thereof. The street was no longer deserted, as <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3104838/phukets-bars-and-beaches-deserted-coronavirus-batters?module=perpetual_scroll_0&amp;pgtype=article&amp;campaign=3104838">eerie photos</a> throughout the lockdowns and closed borders of 2020 and 2021 had captured, but the flickering strobe lights couldn't hide how many empty seats most of the bars had.</p><div type="image" title="Women in red dresses lined up on the side of a dark street" height="2580" width="3439" msid="90841835" hostid="261"></div><p>I walked up and down the street twice. It was full of hawkers selling their wares — glow-in-the-dark spinny things that fly, individually wrapped roses, menus touting Pad Thai and cheeseburgers.</p><p>Turning right off the main drag onto a quieter alleyway, I found an open-air bar advertising beer pong and pool. Inside was a guy in a white shirt drinking a light beer. As I snapped a couple photos, I saw another man approaching from the direction of the party.</p><div type="image" title="An empty bar on a dark street in Phuket, Thailand" height="3024" width="4032" msid="90841837" hostid="261"></div><p>He greeted me, and I eyed him warily. When I didn't respond, he asked me what language I spoke. "English," I finally told him, and his face lit up. "Perfect," he said.</p><p>His name, he told me, was Aris, and he was a club promoter from Greece. Or, rather, he had been a club promoter until the pandemic struck and all the clubs closed. I asked him what he thought of tonight's scene.</p><p>"Not bad," he told me, "But last night's was better." He gestured towards the pool and pong bar behind us. "That place, last night," he started, pulling out his phone and flipped through some photos, finally tilting the screen towards me: It was the same bar, and it was in fact full of people.</p><p>"It's the only place in town with beer pong," Aris added after a moment. "You know this game?" When I nodded, he smiled. "Of course, you know this game. You are American."</p><p>We had approached Bangla Road again. Surrounded by flashing lights and waving women, I asked him if he was nervous about finding a job in the club industry.</p><p>"No," he told me, quietly but surely. "In this town, as long as you know people — I'm not worried."</p><p class="drop-cap">Like in any self-respecting party town, mornings in Patong Beach start slow.</p><p>At 8 a.m. on Monday, I posted up at a beachfront Starbucks with my laptop. First came the wave of joggers, albeit not many of them. Around 9 a.m., a group of Americans sat next to me and loudly began extolling the virtues of bitcoin to each other. By 10:30 a.m., a steady stream of motorcycles and pickup trucks was sputtering by. And then, a tan, be-Speedoed man well into middle age barreled across the walkway, bellowed at an oncoming car, and marched into a 7-11.</p><p>It was 11 a.m., and Patong Beach was awake.</p><p>The next morning, I stopped by a little standalone booth on Beach Road. A woman with coral lipstick was sitting behind the counter, and laid forth in front of her were shiny brochures advertising day trips to other islands.</p><p>Her name was Pu. She'd been living in Phuket for 35 years, and before the pandemic, she had worked in hotels. She'd been working the tourism booth since July and had plans to run her own booth one day. She said she's currently pacing at around 75% of her sales goals. "Some days," she said, "I have two or three customers who buy, but I have many checking for prices."</p><p>When I asked her what tour she'd recommend booking, she said Phi Phi island: "Go now, it's beautiful, because it's empty."</p><p>The island relies heavily on tourism: Before the pandemic, <keyword id="11896628" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="travel" source="Orion">travel</keyword> <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Life-Arts/Life/Phuket-goes-local-amid-COVID-19-tourism-slump">accounted for</a> 80% of Phuket's economy and more than 300,000 jobs. In 2019, Phuket's international airport recorded 5.3 million arrivals. But in 2020, that decreased to 1.1 million arrivals. From January to July 2021, the island clocked 600,000 arrivals, data from Airports of Thailand shows. Tourism revenue cratered. Nightly hotel-room demand fell to sub-20% in early 2020 and stayed there through the middle of 2021, per data from Thailand's ministry of tourism and sports.</p><p>Throughout the course of 2021, Thailand made attempts at reopening. In July, it launched a plan called <a href="https://www.insider.com/thailand-phuket-sandbox-tourism-vaccinated-travelers-2021-6">Phuket Sandbox</a>, under which tourists could travel around Thailand if they quarantined in Phuket; <a href="https://www.tatnews.org/2021/08/first-month-of-phuket-sandbox-sees-14000-arrivals-829-m-baht-revenue/">14,000</a> international tourists arrived on the island that month. It was a big step up from its pandemic low, and still a giant step down from its pre-pandemic standard.</p><p>The pandemic's effects on Thailand's economy have been dire. More than 70% of the country's households saw their incomes fall during the pandemic, a Gallup Poll, funded by the <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/thailand/publication/monitoring-the-impact-of-covid-19-in-thailand">World Bank</a>, found in a survey of 2,000 Thai families; 60% of low-income families reported running out of food. Sangchai Theerakulwanich, the chairman of the Federation of Thai SME, told <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-05/pandemic-pushes-millions-of-small-thai-businesses-into-crisis">Bloomberg</a> in July that 80% of the country's small- and medium-sized enterprises could be out of business by the end of the year. </p><p>Despite warnings of this nature, if you don't leave Patong Beach's main drag, you can almost convince yourself the town will emerge from the pandemic looking like itself. But then you do leave the main drag, and what you see immediately is not a case of complete abandonment, but rather a study in closely placed extremes.</p><p>These two bars, for example, are separated by a wall and nothing else. (I took these photos seconds apart.) The one that's not abandoned is one wall closer to the beach.</p><div type="image" title="Empty chairs at a beach bar in Phuket, Thailand that's lit up with neon lights" height="3024" width="4032" msid="90841838" hostid="261"></div><div type="image" title="A dark, empty bar on a dark street in Phuket, Thailand" height="3024" width="4032" msid="90841840" hostid="261"></div><p>Further out from the city center, things got worse.</p><p>On my final night, I hiked up a steep, paved hill that wound away from Patong Beach and towards Paradise Beach. Stray dogs surveyed me from sidewalk perches, panting calmly. Couples on scooters roared by and utility trucks tooted their horns every time they passed something living, myself and strays alike.</p><p>I had been here almost exactly two years earlier, when the world was very different. At that time, lining one side of the narrow highway to Paradise Beach, I had walked by a lively, if impoverished, strip of homes and small businesses.</p><p>Today, it was deserted.</p><div type="image" title="Abandoned homes and storefronts on the side of a small highway in Phuket, Thailand" height="3024" width="4032" msid="90841841" hostid="261"></div><p>The sidewalk was full of wood and garbage. On one robins-egg-blue shack, the paint had peeled off the wall in the shape of a cross. The door gaped dark and empty like a missing tooth.</p><p>A couple doors down was a small shop with windows on two sides, "Thai oil massage" decals still intact. Inside, the floor was littered with small, dead leaves.</p><div type="image" title="An abandoned massage parlor outside of Patong Beach, Phuket" height="3024" width="4032" msid="90841842" hostid="261"></div><p class="drop-cap">The sun was setting purple around me as I began my hike back up the steep hill to my hotel. On the way, I peered into a dark-timbered resort where three guests were sitting at two tables. The waitress seated me outside among a sea of empty tables and I ordered a gin and tonic as the sound of fireworks lit up the night.</p><p>For all the empty seats at all the empty restaurants I'd seen so far, I kept coming back to the signs of recovery I was seeing. A couple days after I left Phuket, I asked Bill Barnett, the founder and CEO of Phuket-based hospitality consultancy C9 Hotelworks, if he thought the pandemic was the end of Phuket. He said it wasn't — but that it was a tipping point in the island's hospitality cycle.</p><p>"You need disruption," Barnett said. "It starts a new cycle, and you see who comes back, who's still standing."</p><p>"We're still standing," Barnett said of the island. "The early markets back were through Sandbox. We saw friends and family coming back, lots of people who have vacation homes and second homes, Europeans." Then, he said, it was businesspeople, and eventually, also, tourists.</p><p>Over the next few days of my trip, business owners across the island — in Patong Beach, Cherngtalay, Phuket Town — would all tell me that the pandemic had wrought various levels of destruction on their businesses. But even within those stories there were the upsides: The Turkish restaurant owner who managed to open a new spot in Phuket Town because rents were 50% lower; the French-Thai pastry chef who bought a three-floor building on Patong's Beach Road and was now transforming it into a coworking-space-cum-restaurant; Pu, selling brochures on the street and already planning to open her own tourism stand one day.</p><p>After two years at a standstill, it's not what I expected to find, but Phuket struck me as less an island in crisis and more an island on the brink of rebirth — bruised and battered, yes, but with a resigned sense that even this would pass.</p><div type="image" title="An empty street full of abandoned storefronts in Phuket, Thailand" height="3024" width="4032" msid="90841844" hostid="261"></div>

I flew to one of Thailand's biggest party streets 2 years after it went dark during the pandemic. What I found was an island on the brink of rebirth.

New Delhi, Jul 12 () Delhi's daily COVID-19 case count on Sunday remained below the 2,000-mark for the second consecutive day and with the recovery rate improving to nearly 80 per cent, authorities have for now put on hold plans to use stadiums as makeshift coronavirus care facilities. <p> In the last 24 hours, the national capital has recorded 1,573 fresh coronavirus cases, taking the tally to 1,12,494 in the city, while the death toll mounted to 3,371 after 37 fatalities were reported, according to the latest Delhi health department bulletin. </p><p> This is the first time in July that the daily case count has remained below the 2,000-mark for two consecutive days. On Saturday, 1,781 cases were detected. </p><p> The COVID-19 recovery rate improved to 79.97 per cent on Sunday, as per the bulletin. </p><p> Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said that Delhi has been able to minimise deaths of coronavirus patients in home isolation through pulse oximeters, which he termed as "suraksha kavach'' (protective shield). </p><p> The bulletin said as many as 89,968 patients have recovered, been discharged or migrated so far, while there are 19,155 active cases in the city. </p><p> The Delhi government has asked all district magistrates (DMs) to document initiatives taken by them in their respective areas to deal with the COVID-19 situation. </p><p> For instance, the South Delhi district administration has set up a 10,000-bed Sardar Patel COVID Care Centre, one of the "largest" such facilities in the world, at the Radha Soami Satsang Beas. </p><p> Similarly, a 500-bed COVID care facility was set up at the Commonwealth Games Village in East Delhi. In North West district, railway coaches were converted into insolation wards for COVID-19 patients. </p><p> The DMs have been asked to also mention the difficulties they faced while executing such initiatives. </p><p> "The need was felt to showcase all such initiatives taken by the district magistrates so that their efforts are reflected in documents. All the DMs have been asked to make proper documentation of these initiatives introduced by them to deal with the COVID-19 situation," an official told . </p><p> Seeing the good recovery rate, authorities in the city have for now put on hold their plans to use stadiums as makeshift COVID-19 care facilities. </p><p> Last month, a Delhi government panel, constituted by Lt Governor Anil Baijal, had suggested to use Pragati Maidan, Talkatora Indoor Stadium, Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium and JLN Stadium, Thyagaraj Indoor Stadium and Dhyanchand National Stadium for the purpose. </p><p> "Seeing the current situation, there is no need to convert stadiums into COVID-19 care facilities. We can use them (stadiums) for such facility, but it would be unnecessary step because many people are under home-isolation and recovering from the virus," an official in the east Delhi district administration said. </p><p> He said that if such need arises in the coming days, the district authorities will use stadiums as makeshift COVID-19 care facilities. </p><p> "We are closely monitoring the situation. As of now, there is no need to use any stadium for COVID-19 care facility," an official in the south district administration said. </p><p> On Saturday, a government study said that there has been a "sharp decline" in daily fatality figures in the past two weeks. </p><p> Terming pulse oximeters as ''suraksha kavach'', Kejriwal said these have helped minimise COVID-19 deaths of patients under home isolation in Delhi. </p><p> The Delhi government has provided pulse oximeters to asymptomatic and mild symptom coronavirus patients undergoing home isolation. </p><p> "Delhi has been able to minimise deaths of coronavirus patients in home isolation through this suraksha kavach called pulse oximeter. If patients detect their oxygen is falling they reach out to us for help. We immediately send oxygen concentrators to their home or take them to a hospital," Kejriwal said in a tweet. </p><p> A pulse oximeter is a device that measures blood oxygen level. Coronavirus patients need to be hospitalised if their oxygen level reaches 90 per cent or below, according to health guidelines. </p><p> A study of COVID-19 deaths reported in the last fortnight (from June 24), conducted by the Delhi government, has revealed that no one under home isolation has died in first week of July. The total number of daily deaths too have shown a sharp decline, the report said. </p><p> In a sign of revival of economic activities post the coronavirus-forced lockdown in Delhi, over 23,000 vehicles were registered in the city in June, up from just 8,455 a month ago, transport department officials said on Sunday. </p><p> Registration of cars and two-wheelers picked up after the restrictions due to the lockdown were relaxed, they said. </p><p> "The registration of vehicles picked up after ''Unlock 1'' was declared, and total registrations were 23,940 in the month," said an official. </p><p> Official data shows that registrations in June included 18,741 two-wheelers (motorcycles and scooters) and 4,755 four-wheelers, he said. </p><p> Some restaurants reopened a month ago after being allowed to resume their business post the COVID-19 lockdown, but are still grappling with decreased sales, staff shortages and few dine-in customers. </p><p> Due to COVID-19 restrictions, many restaurants have not commenced dine-in facilities and are relying on takeaways to drive their business. </p><p> According to Rohit Aggarwal, director of Lite Bite Foods, post ''Unlock'', the situation has not been "very motivating, walk-in numbers are extremely low and the operational cost is soaring". </p><p> "The highest number of dine-in guests we have served on a single day after opening following the COVID-19 lockdown is just 15 at Punjab Grill's Saket outlet. We are hoping to serve the same number of guests we had before very soon and are positive that this number will go up eventually. </p> "We are making just 20 per cent sales of what we used to do. Dine-in sales account for just 25 per cent of the existing 20 per cent sales and rest all are delivery and takeaway orders," he said. GVS VIT SLB BUN ANB ANB

COVID-19: Recovery rate nears 80 pc in Delhi; plans to use stadiums as COVID-19 facilities put on hold

Rome, Apr 11 (AFP) The United States became the first country to report more than 2,000 coronavirus deaths in a single day, marking a grim milestone as billions around the world celebrated the Easter holiday weekend under lockdown from home.<p>The global death toll from the virus surged past 103,000 on Friday, with the United States quickly becoming the epicentre of the pandemic that first emerged in China late last year.Europe has so far shouldered the majority of all deaths and infections -- though there were signs of hope the curve could be starting to flatten in some of the hardest-hit countries.</p><p>Numbers out of Madrid offered a glimmer of hope Saturday: 510 new deaths, a dip in fatalities for the third day in a row.In France, nearly 1,000 new deaths were confirmed Friday but the country reported a drop in the number of intensive care patients for a second day running.</p><p>Italy meanwhile said the number of daily deaths was starting to level off -- though the government resisted pressure to lift its lockdown, extending confinement measures until May 3.</p><p>With 18,849 dead, Italy has the highest global death toll, but it is likely soon to be surpassed by the United States where fatalities continued to mount this week.</p><p>On Friday, the United States reported 2,108 new deaths, the highest daily toll out of any country since the outbreak was first reported in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December.With more than half a million reported infections, the United States already has more coronavirus cases than anywhere else in the world.The global infection rate now stands at more than 1.7 million, though with many countries only testing the most serious cases the numbers are likely far higher.</p><p>But President Donald Trump said that with the US infection trajectory "near the peak" and social distancing working well, he was considering ways to re-open the world's biggest economy as soon as possible.</p><p>He acknowledged the risk of higher death tolls if businesses restart too soon -- after the World Health Organization on Friday cautioned countries against lifting lockdown measures too quickly.</p><p>"But you know what? Staying at home leads to death also," Trump added, pointing to the massive economic suffering for millions of Americans.</p><p>It is unclear when that will be possible, with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo saying millions in the state -- the hardest hit in the US -- will have to be tested before it can reopen.</p><p>Easter weekend kicked off in near-empty churches around the world as parishioners remained locked in their homes.</p><p>More than four billion people -- over half the world's population -- are confined to their homes from New York to Naples to New Delhi as governments scramble to contain the pandemic's deadly march across the globe.</p><p>Pope Francis was due to livestream his Easter Vigil from an empty St Peter's Basilica later Saturday, after he presided over an empty Good Friday Service to kick off the holiday weekend.</p><p>The pontiff was praised by Italy's prime minister for his "gesture of responsibility" to observe Easter in private.</p><p>"We will remember this spring as the one in which, for the first time in history, the pope presided over the general audiences and conducted the Angelus (prayer) by livestream," Giuseppe Conte wrote in Italy's Catholic daily Avvenire.</p><p>"His words, although spoken far from Saint Peter's Square, which was wrapped in an unreal silence, have reached everyone." Worshippers in Rome stocked up on traditional Easter cakes ahead of the weekend, some piling them onto scooters outside of grocery stores, eager to maintain parts of the holiday tradition even from home.</p><p>Across Europe, government urged citizens to stay home for the weekend, fearing people would flock outdoors to enjoy warm weather or flee to holiday homes.</p><p>France deployed some 160,000 gendarmes to patrol busy roads, while Lithuania set up road blocks to prevent travellers from leaving cities.</p><p>And Turkey announced with little warning Friday that a 48-hour lockdown order would be in place in dozens of cities, including Ankara and Istanbul, as its virus death toll crept past 1,000.</p><p>Shoppers crowded supermarkets in Istanbul late Friday in a rush to stock up on supplies before the curfew started at midnight.The World Health Organization has warned that prematurely easing lockdown measures -- as has started in central China where to virus first emerged -- could spark a dangerous return of the disease.</p><p>"Lifting restrictions too quickly could lead to a deadly resurgence," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned Friday.Some countries, especially in Asia, are worried about a possible second wave of infections imported from travellers as life creeps back to normal.</p><p>But governments are under pressure to strike a balance between keeping people safe and keeping already battered economies stable.And while President Trump has discussed a rapid return to economic stability, the US government's top infectious disease specialist Anthony Fauci said that despite signs of progress, "this is not the time... to be pulling back at all" on social distancing efforts.</p><p>The pandemic has shaken the global economy, and the International Monetary Fund -- which has $1 trillion in lending capacity -- said it was responding to calls from 90 countries for emergency financing.</p><p>It said this week the world now faces the worst downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s.</p>G20 energy ministers, meanwhile, pledged to work together to ensure oil market stability after major oil producers agreed to cut output. (AFP)  PMSPMS

US reports highest daily virus toll as Easter opens in lockdown

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Thousands of demonstrators returned to downtown Washington, DC, on Tuesday for a fifth night of protests over the police killing of <keyword id="9295731" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="george-floyd">George Floyd</keyword> in Minnesota.</li><li>Tuesday was the second night the city was under curfew and followed violent confrontations on Monday night. But while Tuesday appeared to be the largest gathering so far, it also seemed to be the calmest.</li></ul><p><keyword id="367961" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="national-guard">National Guard</keyword> troops, federal law-enforcement agents, and local police took position around Washington, DC, on Tuesday, the city's second day with a curfew and the fifth straight day of protests over the killing of George Floyd by police during an arrest in Minnesota.</p><p>The Trump administration has <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/lawmakers-dont-know-how-trump-pentagon-will-use-troops-protests-2020-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener">threatened to deploy active-duty troops to cities across the country</a>, including DC, where the federal government has expansive authority.</p><p>But about 1,200 members of the District of Columbia National Guard, as well as several hundred guardsmen from other states, are now in the city. On Tuesday, many of them were alongside federal agents from the FBI and Department of Justice, some dressed in tactical gear. Customs and Border Patrol, the Secret Service, and the US Park Police have also deployed personnel, especially around the White House.</p><p><div type="image" title="DC June 2 protest photos" height="1875" width="2500" msid="76186014" hostid="261"></div></p><p>Protestors began gathering near the White House early on Tuesday afternoon, and buildings throughout the city were boarded up during the day, trying to avoid the damage done to other buildings on previous nights.</p><p>National Guard troops and federal agents blocked off intersections and directed traffic in the neighborhoods around the White House, including the street just west of the Friendship Archway in the city's Chinatown district.</p><p><div type="image" title="DC June 2 protest photos" height="1874" width="2500" msid="76186015" hostid="261"></div></p><p>In addition to military vehicles in the street, National Guard members and other federal law-enforcement agents were standing along the street immediately west of the arch.</p><p>When asked, one agent would only say he and the several others — dressed green fatigues and wearing tactical vests — were with the Department of Justice and that several of them were carrying paintball guns for crowd control.</p><p><div type="image" title="DC June 2 protest photos" height="1874" width="2500" msid="76186016" hostid="261"></div></p><p>Agents from the Bureau of Prisons and the Drug Enforcement Administration, both part of the Justice Department, were also deployed around the city.</p><p>While the <keyword id="174158" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="DEA">DEA</keyword>'s authority is normally limited to drug-related federal crimes, it has been given permission to "<a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonleopold/george-floyd-police-brutality-protests-government" target="_blank" rel="noopener">conduct covert surveillance</a>" and collect intelligence on protestors.</p><p>Uniformed police and National Guard members were stationed around the National Portrait Gallery, and businesses, restaurants, and landmarks in the area were also completely or partially boarded up, including Ford's Theater.</p><p><div type="image" title="DC June 2 protest photos" height="1875" width="2500" msid="76186017" hostid="261"></div></p><p>With many businesses still closed and many people working from home due to the coronavirus pandemic, streets around downtown DC have been emptier, even more so in recent days due to the protests.</p><p>Police and military vehicles were parked between Pennsylvania and Constitution avenues, just north of the National Mall, as people streamed toward the White House to join other protestors.</p><p>At one point early on Tuesday evening, a phalanx of DC police on bicycles road east toward Capitol Hill. National Guard members took up position elsewhere on the Mall, including an imposing group in camouflage <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CA8zdf1HhGs/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">on the steps</a> of the Lincoln Memorial.</p><p><div type="image" title="DC June 2 protest photos" height="1874" width="2500" msid="76186018" hostid="261"></div></p><p>Demonstrators gathered on H Street, north of Lafayette Square, from which they had been violently expelled by police and National Guard troops on Monday evening. Protestors in front of the square marked the 7 p.m. curfew by kneeling, and it passed without incident.</p><p>The gathering mostly remained calm. When people began to rattle and bang on the fence separating them from the square, others admonished them. Throughout the evening some handed out water and food or made signs.</p><p><div type="image" title="DC June 2 protest photos" height="1874" width="2500" msid="76186019" hostid="261"></div></p><p>On 16th Street, several blocks north of the White House, bored-looking National Guard members stood around alongside federal officers, including at least one DEA agent.</p><p>One guardsman said it had been an uneventful day, calling it "peaceful" and "a nice protest."</p><p>A few blocks north, DC police wearing what appeared to riot gear chatted among themselves on the steps of a building. One smoked a cigarette while another sat off to the side, making a phone call using earbuds.</p><p><div type="image" title="DC June 2 protest photos" height="1875" width="2500" msid="76186021" hostid="261"></div></p><p>The hum of helicopters over the city was a constant throughout Tuesday night. At one point around 8 p.m. a Black Hawk helicopter circled over the intersection at 16th Street and L Street.</p><p>The Black Hawk did not fly nearly as low as helicopters did on Monday night, when several, including one with a Red Cross emblem, appeared to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/06/02/helicopter-protest-dc/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">target protestors</a> with downdraft from their rotors.</p><p>The commanding general of DC's National Guard <a href="https://twitter.com/DCGuard1802/status/1267980958080339969" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> Tuesday there would be an investigation of "the actions of our rotary aviation assets" on June 1.</p><p><div type="image" title="DC June 2 protest photos" height="1875" width="2500" msid="76186022" hostid="261"></div></p><p>In addition to the roughly 2,000 National Guard troops in DC, the Pentagon <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/pentagon-1600-troops-on-alert-outside-dc-for-protest-response-2020-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener">moved 1,600 soldiers</a> to bases around the city on Tuesday.</p><p>Among those soldiers are military police from Fort Bragg in North Carolina and from Fort Drum in New York, as well as an infantry battalion from the 82nd Airborne Division's Immediate Response Force, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/pentagon-1600-troops-on-alert-outside-dc-for-protest-response-2020-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a crisis-response force</a> that most recently deployed on short notice to the Middle East in January.</p><p>All 1,600 of them arrived in the DC area within the last 24 hours but are not currently "participating in defense support to civil authority operations," a Pentagon spokesman said Tuesday.</p><p><div type="image" title="DC June 2 protest photos" height="1875" width="2500" msid="76186023" hostid="261"></div></p><p>National Guard members and federal agents, many from the DEA, remained stationed along Massachusetts Avenue as the evening went on.</p><p>Guardsmen and DEA agents at the intersection of 10th Street and Massachusetts, by the Cato Institute think tank, said they'd been there all day and that the streets had been blocked off to halt vehicle traffic to parts of the city where there had been looting and damage to buildings.</p><p>But, they emphasized, streets were still open to pedestrians as well as those on bikes or scooters.</p><p><div type="image" title="DC June 2 protest photos" height="1875" width="2500" msid="76186024" hostid="261"></div></p><p>Some demonstrators said that the gathering Tuesday appeared to be the biggest so far but also the calmest.</p><p>A number of participants <a href="https://dcist.com/story/20/06/02/dc-protests-night-5-lafayette-park-fence-secret-service/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told local news outlet DCist</a> it was their first night attending. Mike Whitfield said he came out because he thought he could help other people if they were pepper sprayed, which he said he experienced while in the military.</p><p>"I want to make sure I can help as many people as possible," Whitfield <a href="https://dcist.com/story/20/06/02/dc-protests-night-5-lafayette-park-fence-secret-service/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told DCist</a>.</p><p><div type="image" title="DC June 2 protest photos" height="1875" width="2500" msid="76186025" hostid="261"></div></p><p>While there were few signs of the violent confrontations that marked Monday evening, there were <a href="https://twitter.com/JakeMaher2/status/1267982913439584256" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tense moments</a> as well as <a href="https://twitter.com/trystineann/status/1267988667995508737" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reports</a> of property destruction.</p><p>As the night wore on, protestors began to move north, and the number in front of the White House <a href="https://twitter.com/tobymuse/status/1268013309082681344" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dwindled</a>. At one point, they <a href="https://twitter.com/aaronseider/status/1268009023665774595" target="_blank" rel="noopener">passed a line of people</a> waiting to vote in DC's presidential primary.</p><p>Voters are exempt from the 7 p.m. curfew, and many had to <a href="https://dcist.com/story/20/06/02/dc-june-2-primary-covid19-ballot-confusion-curfew/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wait hours</a> to cast their ballots.</p><p><div type="image" title="DC June 2 protest photos" height="1875" width="2500" msid="76186026" hostid="261"></div></p><p>The early-morning hours on Wednesday did see military police <a href="https://twitter.com/shomaristone/status/1268043073654796291" target="_blank" rel="noopener">launch pepper spray</a> at protestors <a href="https://twitter.com/MarkIronsMedia/status/1268046417865715713" target="_blank" rel="noopener">banging on the fence</a> of Lafayette Square. But overall, Tuesday evening differed dramatically from the clashes and tension of Monday night.</p><p>Elsewhere in the city, DEA agents and other federal officers stood idly, their zip ties still tucked into their vests. There were 19 arrests in the city during the night, most of them for breaking the curfew, the <a href="https://twitter.com/Curious_Kurz/status/1268217018064547840" target="_blank" rel="noopener">DC police chief said</a> Wednesday.</p>

National Guard troops and federal agents kept close watch on 5th night of George Floyd protests in Washington DC

<p class="source"><span>Carlo Allegri/Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">In a speech at the Billboard Women in Music event this month, Swift called private equity's influence in the music industry a "potentially harmful force."</p><ul class="summary-list"><li>These 13 private equity deals showcased powerful trends that will shape the industry in the new year, according to conversations with dozens of insiders. </li><li>The deals highlighted the emergence of private equity firms banding together more frequently to cover the equity check of a target company, as well as the increased scrutiny of the PE industry in public discourse. </li><li>"It's going to continue to be a challenging environment for [PE firms] to get good returns on the money they are investing," said Brian Hamilton, a private equity partner at law firm Sullivan &amp; Cromwell.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/prime">Click here for more BI Prime stories</a>. </li></ul><p>2019 was the year some US politicians put the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elizabeth-warrens-war-on-private-equity-is-great-news-for-lobbyists">private equity industry in their crosshairs</a>. And on the deal front, there was plenty of high-profile action to draw attention. From huge deals in terms of size, to smaller ones that provoked celebrities' wrath, we wanted to find out which transactions this year should be remembered for. </p><p>We gathered as much from conversations Business Insider struck up in emails, phone calls, and sit-downs with dozens of PE execs and their advisers in recent months. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the dialogue naturally tended to drift toward the largest deals by volume.</p><p>This included Blackstone's $18.7 billion acquisition of logistics assets from GLP - <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-03/blackstone-buys-18-7-billion-u-s-property-assets-from-glp">a deal underscoring a bet that more companies like Amazon will use warehouse storage</a> - and EQT Partners' $10 billion purchase of Nestle's skin health care unit, which created a huge new dermatology company called Galderma. </p><p>But apart from sheer size, there were notable trends in how firms approached deals. One that emerged as top-of-mind for lawyers, bankers, and PE execs was the fact that multiple PE firms were increasingly banding together to cover the equity check of their target companies. </p><p>These so-called club deals were once popular in the lead-up to the financial crisis and observers said they were noticing a comeback, signaling a certain frothiness to the market. </p><p>Some recent deals included the <a href="https://pitchbook.com/newsletter/consortium-completes-69b-deal-for-dun-bradstreet">$6.9 billion purchase of New Jersey commercial data provider Dun &amp; Bradstreet</a>, bought by a group of investors led by CC Capital, as well as the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-25/buyout-firms-pension-funds-to-buy-inmarsat-for-7-21-a-share">$3.4 billion acquisition of satellite company Inmarsat</a> by Warburg Pincus, Apax, CPPIB, and Ontario Teachers Pension Plan.</p><p><em><strong>Read more:</strong> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bane-carlyle-team-up-in-rare-private-equity-deal-2019-7/commerce-on-business-insider">'Some of the conversations we had in 2006 we are having again': Bain and Carlyle are teaming up in rare deal that private equity has been reluctant to do since the financial crisis</a></em></p><p>But the more owners of a company there are, the more difficult a company can be to manage, especially in the event of a downturn when there can be disagreements about how to right the ship amid waning sales.</p><p>At the same time, the emergence of such deals signals the challenging nature of PE dealmaking: that prices for companies are getting higher and higher and firms are teaming up with competitors to put investor money to work.</p><p>"There is just not a lot of easy stuff left and there is so much money chasing deals," said Brian Hamilton, a private equity partner at Sullivan &amp; Cromwell whose clients have included Silver Lake and Goldman Sachs.</p><p>"It's going to continue to be a challenging environment for [PE firms] to get good returns on the money they are investing," he said.</p><p>Other insiders also were quick to note that club deals today were often confined to only two or three major buyers, as opposed to five or six that marked the 2000s. They also said that the terms of such deals were carefully structured so that the governance of an acquired company would be well-organized in the case of a downturn.</p><p>"There is a lot more thought put into that governance," said Brenda Rainey, a consultant at Bain &amp; Co, noting that PE execs were trying to reach consensus on who was in the driver's seat on actions to take with the business post-close.</p><p>Nevertheless, the more private equity firms are getting involved in leveraged buyouts, the more their business practices are expected to come under scrutiny in 2020, says Tom Whelan, a PE partner at McDermott Will &amp; Emery. </p><p>Whelan, whose clients have included Fortress and General Atlantic, said that the "the ability of the larger funds to club together to buy substantial, listed companies" - and their resulting "economic firepower" - naturally draws the attention of politicians and other stakeholders concerned about how target companies will be affected.</p><p>"Sponsors should be mindful of the need to demonstrate as part of any large bid that they are a force for good as an owner, whether through good governance, good citizenship, or through job and wealth creation," he said.</p><p>Publicity, however, is not only a factor in multi-billion dollar deals.</p><p>In fact, some off the smaller deals throughout the year got the most press attention and pointed to some of the biggest trends in PE. </p><p>It was a more than $300 million minority stake The Carlyle Group took in Ithaca Holdings that financed talent manager Scooter Braun's purchase of Big Machine Label, which drew the ire of country-pop music icon Taylor Swift.</p><p>Swift, whose music is owned by Big Machine Label and was bought by Braun as a result of the deal, objected to the transaction and called out Carlyle in helping Braun acquire the rights to her music.</p><p><em><strong>Read more:</strong> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/private-equity-giant-carlyles-approach-to-music-deals-2019-7">Private-equity giant Carlyle just used an unusual approach to clinch a big-time music deal with Rascal Flatts and Taylor Swift</a></em></p><p>In a speech at the Billboard Women in Music event this month, Swift called private equity's influence in the music industry "a potentially harmful force" and that firms were "buying up our music as if it is real estate." </p><p>The kerfuffle, which started over the summer, gave politicians new material to criticize the PE industry, with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/aoc-defends-singer-taylor-swift-and-condemns-private-equity-firms-2019-11">piling onto the discourse</a>, holding up the dispute as an indictment on the "predatory" nature of the industry.</p><p>Other types of smaller PE deals, meanwhile, pointed to less potentially controversial trends - namely, that firms are targeting smaller companies, and sometimes settling for minority stakes. </p><p>For instance, Blackstone launched a whole division focused on growth equity, seeking deals of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/meet-the-exec-behind-new-blackstone-unit-fast-growing-companies-2019-11">between $200 million to $500 million</a>. And Goldman Sachs, one of the lead investment banks advising private equity, is <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/goldman-sachs-has-finalized-its-middle-market-private-equity-team-2019-11">assembling a team of senior bankers focused on the middle-market</a>. </p><p>With both big and small PE deals taken into consideration, below are some of private equity's highlights from 2019. </p>

Private equity had a slew of mega deals in 2019, and many ruffled a few feathers along the way. Here are 13 that showcase the industry's massive reach.

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Starcity</span></p><p class="caption">Starcity is taking over a residential building in Los Angeles that was once used for housing interns at Snapchat parent company Snap Inc.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul><li><strong>Starcity, a startup that develops communal living, or "co-living," spaces in the San Francisco Bay Area, has announced it's expanding to Los Angeles in September.</strong></li><li><strong>29 Navy Street will offer 31 units of housing in Venice Beach. </strong></li><li><strong>Starcity believes its unconventional housing stock could provide some relief from the Los Angeles housing crunch.</strong></li></ul><p> </p><p><a href="https://starcity.com/">Starcity</a>, a startup that buys old hotels, retail buildings, and parking garages and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/a-startup-is-creating-communal-housing-for-middle-class-workers-2017-12">turns them into shared living spaces</a> for San Francisco's middle class, is opening its first residential building outside the Bay Area. And, no surprise, it's planting roots in another major tech hub.</p><p>The company plans to open its first communal living, or "co-living," space in Los Angeles later this month. <a href="https://starcity.com/communities/venice-beach">29 Navy Street</a> will offer 31 units of housing in Venice Beach, a buzzing beach town in LA that's known for its bohemian spirit and rising number of tech startups.</p><p>The brick-and-timber building <a href="https://therealdeal.com/la/2017/01/30/snap-inc-s-office-building-listed-for-20m/">was formerly leased by Snapchat</a> parent company Snap Inc. and used for intern housing. The app company began snapping up real estate in Venice Beach in 2013, when Snap CEO Evan Spiegel <span>left Palo Alto and launched Snapchat out of Venice Beach, <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-snapchat-real-estate-20150331-story.html">hoping to escape</a> Silicon Valley culture.</span></p><p>Spiegel is not alone in making the move.</p><h2>People are leaving San Francisco in droves</h2><p>The San Francisco Bay Area is on the brink of an exodus as middle-income residents flee the region, where a low supply of homes and high demand have caused the cost of living to soar. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/silicon-valley-tech-elite-is-leaving-san-francisco-2018-3">Others say</a> they're seeking respite from the "groupthink" in Silicon Valley. </p><p>Those housing market refugees <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/san-francisco-housing-so-expensive-people-leaving-2018-4">often settle in places like</a> Seattle, Denver, and Los Angeles - cities where they can continue to work in the tech sector and live within their means.</p><p><em><strong>Read more:</strong> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/san-francisco-expensive-tech-workers-cant-buy-homes-2018-8">San Francisco's housing market is so out of control, 60% of tech workers say they can't afford homes</a></em></p><p>Los Angeles is becoming one of the more alluring destinations for entrepreneurs and the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/young-venture-capital-investors-in-los-angeles-tech-2018-7">investors who fund their startup dreams</a>. Hot companies like scooter-sharing firm Bird, pet-sitting platform Wag, and men's grooming delivery service<span> Dollar Shave Club have all opened headquarters near the city's so-called "Silicon Beach," and new venture capital funds are sprouting up at a dizzying pace.</span></p><h2><span>Starcity is aimed at city dwellers who can't afford city prices</span></h2><p>Venice Beach is a natural fit for Starcity's first expansion beyond the San Francisco Bay Area, though the company's cofounder and CEO Jon Dishotsky said that tech workers aren't its target customers.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Starcity</span></p><p class="caption">Starcity's cofounders.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p><span>Starcity </span>caters to a specific demographic <span>- middle-class earners who don't qualify for government subsidies but still can't afford San Francisco's sky-high prices. That group ends up being mostly non-tech workers, including restaurant staff, teachers, and artists.</span></p><p>"LA is going through a lot of the same things that the San Francisco Bay Area is going through - this question around affordability and access to the best cities," Dishotsky told Business Insider.</p><p>"People are just trying to make ends meet," he added.</p><p>Each resident of a Starcity building has a fully furnished private bedroom and private or shared bathroom, with access to shared living spaces like kitchens, rooftop lounges, and TV areas. Leases are designed with flexible terms, and the monthly rent includes utilities, cleaning service, and shared supplies to reduce hassle.</p><p><span>Most rooms cost between $2,000 and $2,400 a month, which is significantly more affordable than San Francisco's median one-bedroom rent of <a href="https://www.zumper.com/blog/2018/08/zumper-rent-report-september-2018/">$3,570</a> and Venice Beach's typical <a href="https://www.zumper.com/apartments-for-rent/los-angeles-ca/venice">$3,400</a>.</span></p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Starcity</span></p><p class="caption">A bedroom at Starcity's new Venice Beach location.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>The expansion continues</h2><p>Dishotsky said he's been eyeing spaces in Los Angeles for a year now. Starcity is set apart from other companies in the "co-living" category because it buys property, instead of leasing it. This ownership gives the company the ability to add more units - increasing density "to a point where it's still comfortable for the individual," Dishotsky said - and offer residents lower prices.</p><p>The company owns and manages four residential communities in the San Francisco Bay Area, with nine more communities under development. It's focused on converting underutilized multi-family, hotel, and office buildings.</p><p>"In almost every situation, we're trying to build new supply versus cannibalizing existing low-income or market-rate housing," Dishotsky said.</p><p>Starcity has already doubled down on its play for the Los Angeles market. In addition to opening two offices near Venice Beach, Dishotsky hinted at a second residence in Los Angeles that will have over 100 units, making it the largest building in Starcity's portfolio. </p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/linkedin-san-francisco-office-tour-2017-5">LinkedIn's gorgeous San Francisco offices are unlike anything we've ever seen</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

A startup turning old hotels and offices into housing for San Francisco's forgotten middle-class is expanding to LA

<p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Buying a new mattress is often an expensive, annoying experience.</span></p><p><span>Casper, a New York-based mattress startup, wants to make buying a new bed as easy as possible.</span></p><p>Instead of strapping a new, pricey mattress on to the top of your car or in a moving van, Casper has created a latex-memory foam bed.</p><p>It folds up into a box the size of a set of golf clubs and fits in the back of your average car trunk. Casper's beds can also be shipped directly to your door nationally. For orders in New York City, Casper says it can deliver a mattress in under two hours.<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><br /></span></p><p><span>Casper CEO Philip Krim met his cofounders Gabriel Flateman, T. Luke Sherwin, Jeff Chapin, and Neil Parikh in a coworking space in 2013. "We</span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"> starting talking about this idea of selling direct to customers with mattresses that we designed," Krim tells Business Insider. "Our goal was to see, one, if we could build the world's most comfortable bed, and then two, if we could sell it directly through our own site and efforts."</span></p><p>Fourteen months ago, Casper <a href="https://casper.com/mattresses">launched its website</a>. In its first 28 days of business, the mattress startup generated <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/casper-mattresses-1-million-2014-7">$1 million</a> in sales. Casper sells one proprietary type of mattress in six sizes - twin through California king - ranging in price from $500 to $950.</p><p>And on Tuesday, the company announced a $55 million Series B round of funding led by Institutional Venture Partners, with participation from Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Adam Levine, Scooter Braun, and Pritzker Group Venture Capital. <span style="line-height: 1.5em; font-size: 15px; color: #000000;">Existing investors, including New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Lerer Hippeau Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, Vaizra Investments, SV Angel, Slow Ventures, and Queensbridge Ventures, also participated in the round.</span></p><p>In total, Casper has raised <a href="https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/casper">$70 million in venture capital funding</a>.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The new round of funding will be used to allow Casper to expand into other "sleep products," Krim tells Business Insider - think pillows and blankets. It will also let Casper expand internationally.</p><p>In addition, Casper has recently dipped into editorial, too. The startup launched a magazine called <a href="https://vanwinkles.com/">Van Winkle's</a>, built around the topic of sleep. Gawker founding editor Elizabeth Spiers is the publication's editorial director.</p><p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Since launching 14 months ago, Casper has </span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">sold $30 million of mattresses in the US and Canada. The company pegs its current run rate at around $100 million. Its team numbers 75 people (and growing, Krim says), and the majority of its employee growth has happened over the past 6 months.</span></p><p>"Demand has wildly exceeded our expectations. Yesterday was our 14th month anniversary in business, and it's just been amazing," Krim tells Business Insider. "In our original presentation around our seed round, I think our goal was to have 2,000 customers in our first year. As of this month, 14 months in, we're over 50,000 customers."</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/gogoro-smartscooter-is-available-and-it-looks-incredible-2015-6">The 'Tesla of scooters' is finally available and it looks incredible</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="JrYjNydTomoXrRoIQe_bxbwlk4mNL1AL" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

A startup that delivers fluffy mattresses in boxes the size of golf bags just raised $55 million from investors like Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire

Thousands across the UK, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Canada, and more condemn racism and demand justice at global Black Lives Matter protests

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Ambarish Mitra</span></p><p class="caption">Ambarish Mitra, CEO and co-founder of Blippar</p></div><p></p></div></div>Ambarish Mitra was living in Munirka, a slum in the southwest corner of Delhi. He'd been there for seven months when he spotted an ad in the newspaper for an "E-business" competition - what they were calling internet businesses in 1997, Mitra explains.</p><p>The 17-year-old applied to the business plan contest, submitting his idea to empower women by connecting them to the internet for free. His return address was in the slum, near the water tank, he says.</p><p>Mitra did not know that this ad would be his exit route.</p><p>With one IPO under his belt, Mitra now has a billion-dollar augmented reality <keyword id="35666" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="advertising">advertising</keyword> company, Blippar. He's been photographed with the British royal family. His newest phone was personally delivered by Xiaomi VP Hugo Barra, who arrived in a Tesla being driven by an Uber driver.</p><p>Mitra's long past the slums, thanks to the "e-business" ad he spotted that put it all in motion. But in 1997, with that application floating somewhere in the mail, Mitra's focus was on one thing: surviving.</p><h2>'Just a rebel'</h2><p>Mitra grew up in a normal Indian middle class family, which prioritized education over wealth. His mother was a home-maker, a singer, and a painter. Mitra's older sister took after her and went to study the arts at university. She now runs <a href="http://www.deekshaschool.org/">a successful Indian dance school</a> in an Atlanta, Georgia suburb.</p><p>His father used to hand Mitra copies of Business Week and Forbes magazines. He was an inventor in his own right, having found a way to re-use coal slurry in one of the largest Indian coal mining towns, and wanted Mitra to follow in his footsteps to study engineering.</p><p>Mitra, though, was captivated by the internet - and not very great at school. While the drawers of his desk were filled with Backstreet Boys and heavy metal cassette tapes, business books piled up next to his computer. His two favorite books his father ever gave him were on the collapse of IBM and a book on controlling your destiny.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Ambarish Mitra</span></p><p class="caption">Ambarish Mitra's desk at his home. It's still the same as it was when he ran away from home in 1997.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>After witnessing the birth of the internet, Mitra idolized Bill Gates. He read "Business the Bill Gates Way" and Gates' "The Road Ahead." Next to his computer, he kept a framed photo pulled from Fortune Magazine, showing Warren Buffet and Bill Gates.</p><p>"I was beginning to worship people like Bill Gates, like hardcore idolized him," Mitra said. "I actually had an image of him on my study table while people had Madonna and Samantha Fox and all these people in that generation. I had a picture of Bill Gates."</p><p>The lure of the internet put Mitra at odds with his father, who wanted him to study engineering. He had a great childhood and a totally functional, fun-loving family, he says, but he was also a bit of a rebel and wanted more out of his life.</p><p>"My parents wanted me to be an engineer, and I wasn't interested in that. It became so hectic that one day, I just ran away from home and started living in the slum in Delhi," Mitra says.</p><h2>Welcome to Munirka</h2><p>Living in the slums, Mitra went door-to-door in the city selling magazine subscriptions by day - a lesson in handling rejection, he says now. At night, he worked in a tea stall.</p><p>The two jobs netted him around $1.50 a day. He stayed in touch with his sister so she could tell his parents he was alive. Otherwise, he was on his own.</p><p>"I became a man as a boy very quickly," Mitra said. "One quality that I acquired, which runs directly in the DNA of Blippar, is that I became completely fearless. Nothing scares me. When you go through violence like I did, and you come out the other side, it makes you stronger."</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Getty Images</span></p><p class="caption">Ambarish Mitra met Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, during her tour of New York City.</p></div><p></p></div></div>Seven months into his life as a runaway, Mitra noticed the newspaper ad. He applied to the contest, submitting his plan to connect everybody with the internet to empower women.</p><p>It was "noble topic" for a young person, Mitra said, but it had deep roots in his upbringing.</p><p>His grandmother and her four sisters had all received college degrees and rode scooters through the crowded Indian streets. They were a rare sight for 1920s India, but Mitra had grown up realizing how education empowers women. The internet was an extension of that.</p><p>Three months later, Mitra found out that his plan to connect the world won.</p><p>"Absolutely to my shock and surprise and delight," Mitra said. "It was life-changing."</p><p>He won some money and borrowed the rest from a friend's dad who was a banker. Mitra then launched his internet portal: Women Infoline.</p><p>The company gave free internet access to women with low wages, and subsidized it with ads.</p><p>It soon took off as the tendrils of the tech boom made its way to India. By 2000, a 20-year-old Mitra had grown his company from its newspaper ad start in the slums to an IPO in India.</p><p>"When this happened, I did this peace treaty with my father," Mitra said. "I said, I will come back, but I will do whatever I want. They were very proud of me behind the scenes."</p><h2>From boom to bust to boom again</h2><p>Mitra won't reveal how much money he made in the IPO - it's insignificant in today's world, but a lot of money for the year 2000 in any country, he allowed. His resignation shortly after the IPO helped him get out before the tech boom collapsed a year later.</p><p>At the age of 20, pockets flush from the IPO, Mitra was lured to London by the glamour of British life and its culture. Four days after arrival, Mitra started working as a retail associate at the Top Shop clothing store on Oxford Street. Then he spent some time helping the British government build out its intranet, and tried his hands at another couple of startups.</p><p>But in 2008, as the financial crisis hit worldwide, Mitra was almost bankrupt. He found himself having to get a "proper job," as he calls it.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Ambarish Mitra</span></p><p class="caption">Ambarish Mitra and Omar Tayeb outside of the pub where they came up with the idea for Blippar</p></div><p></p></div></div>He joined Axa, an insurance company, working his way up to become head of innovation, but continued to hang out with Omar Tayeb, a friend from a previous startup.</p><p>They were at a pub when they made a joke about having the Queen come to life on a pound note, and Tayeb, who was thankfully sober, remembered it, Mitra says.</p><p>They turned it into a party trick, where a photo scan on the phone would turn the Queen on a £20 pound note into an animated photo of their friends. Mitra's "eureka moment" came when he realized that they shouldn't be obsessing over a bank note. Any image could become animated.</p><p>Tayeb and Mitra came up with $200,000 to launch, investing all of their money in the new startup, which they called Blippar.</p><p>It worked, and the company's latest $45 million round of funding in March 2015 has catapulted the company to a $1.5 billion valuation.</p><h2>Find your warship</h2><p>To say Mitra is bullish on Blippar is an understatement. He told Business Insider he'll never sell to Google or even his idol, Bill Gates and Microsoft, because what he is doing "<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blippar-ceo-ambarish-mitra-says-company-will-stay-independent-but-may-ipo-2015-8">is bigger than the internet itself</a>."</p><p>It's not running away as a teenager, though, that brought him the success - it's the relationships he's formed since and the timing, he says.</p><p>"You can never fire a missile from a kayak. I think I found my warship. I had the right people and the right mix to build this business," Mitra says.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Ambarish Mitra</span></p><p class="caption">Blippar's co-founders: Steve Spencer, Ambarish Mitra, Omar Tayeb and Jess Butcher</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>While the teenage runaway college dropout is a great archetype of tech entrepreneurs, Mitra doesn't recommend it - and wouldn't make the choice again.</p><p>For one, he knows that the decision hurt his mom a lot.</p><p>"It's a human behavior to celebrate success coming out of tough environments because it gives us hope. But at the end of the day, the majority of the time when you make decisions like this, things will go wrong," Mitra said. "It's not important to be smart. It's about building relationships around you. It goes along way in life if you actually truly care about your immediate environment and people who care about what you do."</p><p>While Mitra has cycled through wearable devices, there's one bracelet he's never taken off. A random priest with a long beard gave it to him on the street and told him it was for happiness and prosperity. He's worn the same copper bracelet that's carved into snake heads every day since he was 12.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/stewart-butterfield-advice-for-millenials-2015-7">Stewart Butterfield, co-founder of Slack and Flickr, on two beliefs that have brought him the greatest success in life</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="wzZjE1djoTKZkNfkkiTIXfPAPhsYZikW" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

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