Feature
“Princess Diana was deeply in love with bodyguard, wanted to run away”
London: Princess Diana wanted to run away with a bodyguard with whom she had fallen “deeply in love” to escape her loveless marriage with Prince Charles, according to Diana’s privately recorded videos with her voice coach which is set to be aired for the first time in the UK.
The former Princess of Wales, who was killed in a car crash in Paris 20 years ago, had recorded the tapes with Peter Settelen at Kensington Palace in 1992-1993.
They are now set to be aired for the first time as part of a documentary on the UK’s Channel 4 next week.
In the recordings, she admits falling in love with her bodyguard Barry Mannakee and also discloses her conversations with Charles over his affair with then Camilla Parker-Bowles.
“When I was 24 or 25 I fell deeply in love with someone who worked in this environment. I was quite happy to give all this up..just to go off and live. He Mannakee kept saying he thought it a good idea too,” she is heard saying in excerpts published in ‘The Sunday Times’.
“I just needed someone to tell me I was all right and he mentally kicked me outside and made me go and do my engagements because I used to scream in this room in Kensington Palace. I should never have played with fire and I did and I got burnt,” she says.
Diana, however, denies that it was a sexual relationship and says that “it was all found out and he was chucked out and then he was killed in a motorbike accident and that was the biggest blow of my life”.
“Princess Diana wanted to run away with bodyguard with whom she was deeply in love”:
“He was the greatest friend I’ve ever had. That was a real killer,” she says.
In the tapes, she also describes the blunt response by Charles on being confronted about his affair as, “I refuse to be the only Prince of Wales who never had a mistress”.
She also recounts going to see her mother-in-law, Queen Elizabeth II, at the height of the crisis in the royal marriage, who reportedly said of her son, “I don’t know what you should do, Charles is hopeless”.
Diana’s brother Earl Spencer has urged Channel 4 to refrain from airing extracts from the tapes next week as they would cause distress to Diana’s sons Princes William and Harry.
Settelen had been hired to help Diana prepare to publicly present her account of events after the couple separated in 1991.
Although much of the footage is of voice lessons, at times she answered personal questions.
The Channel 4 extracts are taken from seven tapes but there were believed to be 12 in all, with five still missing.
The State Scores Extra High on Gaming-Friendly Industry Index
Meghalaya scored 92.85 out of 100 possible points in a Gaming Industry Index and proved to be India’s most gaming-friendly state following its recent profound legislation changes over the field allowing land-based and online gaming, including games of chance, under a licensing regime.
The index by the UK India Business Council (UKIBC) uses a scale of 0 to 100 to measure the level of legalisation on gambling and betting achieved by a state based on the scores over a set of seven different games – lottery, horse racing, betting on sports, poker, rummy, casino and fantasy sports
Starting from February last year, Meghalaya became the third state in India’s northeast to legalise gambling and betting after Sikkim and Nagaland. After consultations with the UKIBC, the state proceeded with the adoption of the Meghalaya Regulation of Gaming Act, 2021 and the nullification of the Meghalaya Prevention of Gambling Act, 1970. Subsequently in December, the Meghalaya Regulation of Gaming Rules, 2021 were notified and came into force.
All for the Tourists
The move to legalise and license various forms of offline and online betting and gambling in Meghalaya is aimed at boosting tourism and creating jobs, and altogether raising taxation revenues for the northeastern state. At the same time, the opportunities to bet and gamble legally will be reserved only for tourists and visitors.
“We came out with a Gaming Act and subsequently framed the Regulation of Gaming Rules, 2021. The government will accordingly issue licenses to operate games of skill and chance, both online and offline,” said James P. K. Sangma, Meghalaya State Law and Taxation Minister speaking in the capital city of Shillong. “But the legalized gambling and gaming will only be for tourists and not residents of Meghalaya,” he continued.
To be allowed to play, tourists and people visiting the state for work or business purposes will have to prove their non-resident status by presenting appropriate documents, in a process similar to a bank KYC (Know Your Customer) procedure.
Meghalaya Reaches Out to a Vast Market
With 140 millions of people in India estimated to bet regularly on sports, and a total of 370 million desi bettors around prominent sporting events, as per data from one of the latest reports by Esse N Videri, Meghalaya is set to reach out and take a piece of a vast market.
Estimates on the financial value of India’s sports betting market, combined across all types of offline channels and online sports and cricket predictions and betting platforms, speak about amounts between $130 and $150 billion (roughly between ₹9.7 and ₹11.5 lakh crore).
Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Delhi are shown to deliver the highest number of bettors and Meghalaya can count on substantial tourists flow from their betting circles. The sports betting communities of Karnataka, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana are also not to be underestimated.
Among the sports, cricket is most popular, registering 68 percent of the total bet count analyzed by Esse N Videri. Football takes second position with 11 percent of the bets, followed by betting on FIFA at 7 percent and on eCricket at 5 percent. The last position in the Top 5 of popular sports for betting in India is taken by tennis with 3 percent of the bet count.
Local Citizens will Still have Their Teer Betting
Meghalaya residents will still be permitted to participate in teer betting over arrow-shooting results. Teer is a traditional method of gambling, somewhat similar to a lottery draw, and held under the rules of the Meghalaya Regulation of the Game of Arrow Shooting and the Sale of Teer Tickets Act, 2018.
Teer includes bettors wagering on the number of arrows that reach the target which is placed about 50 meters away from a team of 20 archers positioned in a semicircle.
The archers shoot volleys of arrows at the target for ten minutes, and players place their bets choosing a number between 0 and 99 trying to guess the last two digits of the number of arrows that successfully pierce the target.
If, for example, the number of hits is 256, anyone who has bet on 56 wins an amount eight times bigger than their wager.
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