Word: birla
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...Indeed, Indian mass-merchandisers over the last several years expanded frenetically, trying to get a jump on foreign chains should Indian politicians eventually decide to open up the market to direct competition from overseas. Reliance Industries built 940 stores across the country in 18 months. Aditya Birla group has opened 548 stores since 2007. Today, with India's economy slowing and with losses piling up, the domestic retailers have shut some outlets and laid off employees, partly because of difficulties in keeping large chains supplied with goods. "When you start opening stores and then work backwards, even we get scared...
...Marwaris have it all. Lakshmi Mittal, one of the world's richest men, was born in 1950 in a village 20 minutes drive north of Mandawa. And travel a similar distance to the east, to the village of Pilani, and you will find yourself in the hometown of the Birlas, one of India's most legendary business families. The Birlas and the Mittals, as well as countless other Marwari clans, share a common history. From the 19th century onwards, when the ancient Silk Road that crisscrossed Mandawa began to be eclipsed by the steamship and the railway, the Marwaris fled...
...Conscious of the need to distribute the benefits of growth more evenly, business leaders welcomed Chidambaram's proposals rather than voicing disappointment that he had not cut India's fiscal deficit aggressively or launched bold moves to open up the economy to foreign investment. Says Kumar Mangalam Birla, chairman of the Aditya Birla Group, a Bombay-based conglomerate, and one of the country's richest men: "65% of our population is in the villages; you have to have a budget that addresses them." Empowering the poor, many businessmen say, will eventually widen the foundations of the boom. "The emphasis...
...venture with investment bank JM Financials, making the resulting firm one of the largest in that industry in India. She also aggressively pursued opportunities in technology, nabbing the accounts of Wipro and Infosys, among others, and brokered a joint venture between AT&T and two conglomerates, owned by the Birla and Tata families, to create a telecom company offering cellular service throughout India...
...life as an ascetic, but, as the poet Sarojini Naidu joked, it cost the nation a fortune to keep Gandhi living in poverty. His entire philosophy privileged the village way over that of the city, yet he was always financially dependent on the support of industrial billionaires like Birla. His hunger strikes could stop riots and massacres, but he also once went on a hunger strike to force one of his capitalist patrons' employees to break their strike against the harsh conditions of employment...