Devendra Raj Mehta was a career bureaucrat who rose to the top, advising prime ministers as the deputy governor of RBI and taking on big corporate names during his stint as the Sebi chairman. But as one sits in his 'office' of over a decade, at the Bhagwan Mahaveer Viklang Sahayata Samiti (BMVSS) in Jaipur, the absence of any trappings of power from that 40-year career is striking. Mehta himself...
05:13 PM, Mar 05, 2013
The worst thing to happen to the steel and mining sector was the boom. Some of the experienced CEOs never thought that a boom would last forever. All those companies that invested between 2006 and 2008 are the ones that are now suffering. Those who didn't fall for the boom are doing well. ...
02:52 PM, Feb 14, 2013
Q. Philips has repositioned itself from an electronics giant to a company that is focussed on health care, lighting and customer lifestyle. What role do emerging markets play in this transformation? In the transformation of Philips, we see what is relevant to the world, what we can do to contribute (in terms of innovation) and as we focus on the future, we see how we can differentiate ourselves from the...
01:50 PM, Jan 24, 2013
One does not attain freedom from the bondage of Karma by merely abstaining from work. No one attains perfection merely by giving up work Because no one can remain actionless even for a moment. Everyone is driven to action, helplessly indeed, by the Gunas of nature The deluded ones, who restrain their organs of action but mentally dwell upon the sense of enjoyment, are called hypocrites The one who controls...
01:04 PM, Aug 21, 2012
For a scientist who is passionate about history, Mark Denys appreciates the importance of the West Bokaro coalfields in the Indian clean coal technology space. It was in these coalfields in Jharkhand that Tata Steel set up the country's first coal washery in 1951. The washery reduced the coal's ash content from as much as 35 per cent to 18 per cent, improving the fuel's efficiency and extending the life...
04:29 PM, Jul 28, 2012
Deepak Marda still remembers that fateful day on campus. In early 2007, the 34-year-old IITian was studying at the Stanford Graduate School of Business when Alejanadro Ramirez, the CEO of Cinepolis, Mexicos biggest movie exhibition company and worlds fourth largest, came to address the class. This was the opportunity that Marda and two of his batchmates, Milan Saini who like Marda was doing a mid-career management course after spending a...
11:50 AM, May 02, 2012
All Ajay Jain wanted was for people to buy his photographs. Though he was an engineer and an MBA and had worked in various industries ranging from IT to media, his passion lay in travel and photography. But he was not able to sell enough of his pictures through exhibitions. So he started a gallery and started marketing it online. Yet, nothing really worked. That's when the 41-year-old decided to...
10:48 AM, Apr 21, 2012
At one stroke Rituraj Sinha was putting at stake a business his father had built over 30 years. RK Sinha had founded security service provider SIS (India) in 1974 in Bihar. Now in 2008, his son wanted the Rs 150-crore company to buy an Australian security firm Chubb that was over seven times bigger in revenues. Not surprisingly, none of the senior officials at SIS were enthusiastic. Rituraj was beset...
11:56 AM, Apr 11, 2012
It was early 2010, and Fortis Healthcare's board"chaired by the billionaire Singh brothers, Malvinder and Shivinder"was in session. One of the directors couldn't make it to Delhi, and instead called in. At one point, Shivinder made a point and the director on the call interrupted to clarify, "Who is it, Malvinder [the elder brother] or Shivinder?" The younger brother immediately quipped: "It doesn't matter, it's the same." Although a fun...
11:01 AM, Mar 26, 2012
Every year, 17 million people use the Channel Tunnel, the undersea rail network that connects the United Kingdom with north of France. Considered as one of the Seven Wonders of the modern world, 37.9 km of the 50.5 km-long tunnel passes under the sea. To make sure that each and every part of this sophisticated transport network is as safe as possible, authorities recently opted for a new kind of...
11:15 AM, Feb 28, 2012
Mayank Pareek won't forget the crisis of 2008 in a hurry. In November that year, less than two months after the infamous Lehman Brothers crash, India's biggest passenger car maker, Maruti Suzuki, felt its blow straight in the jaw. By the end of that month, it suddenly lost a quarter of its sales compared to the previous year. December was no better. Sales fell by another 10 per cent. By...
10:59 AM, Feb 15, 2012
About an hours drive from South Delhi lies Ballabgarh, the industrial belt just inside Haryana. Among the scores of manufacturing units there, is the worlds largest plant to make backhoe loaders (a tractor-like vehicle with an arm and bucket mounted on the back and a loader mounted on the front). The plant, which can produce up to 100 of these two-tonne machines a day, is a prized possession of the...
01:19 PM, Dec 01, 2011
Reflecting the global turmoil, the fortunes of a majority of the richest Indians fell this year. Even then, 15 individuals managed to break into his exclusive club. Oh, the ways of wealth! After two years of unprecedented richness, the 100 richest people in India have turned poorer in 2011. With the volatile Sensex losing more than 20 percent since we last compiled the list, Indias wealthiest saw their total fortune...
10:51 AM, Nov 15, 2011
"All is fair in love and war and when it comes to the liquor industry, it is war." This was an extract from a note signed by none other than the man they called the King of Good Times. It landed on the table of Ramesh Vangal, the Asia-Pacific head of liquor giant Seagram and Param Uberoi, the head of Indian operations. United Breweries Group Chairman Vijay Mallya was seething...
11:14 AM, Oct 18, 2011
The slow pace of capacity addition ails the Indian steel industry and PK Misra, the top bureaucrat at the countr's steel ministry, is trying hard to find a solution. For the past few weeks, Misra's team is weighing the pros and cons of what could be a one-shot solution, ultra mega steel projects or UMSPs. On paper, these mega steel plants look promising. Each of these steel plants will have...
01:21 PM, Aug 16, 2011
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