Its massive economies of scale make it the biggest player of its kind by both Indian and global standards. The essence of Reliance''s strategy: presence across the value chain to offset any downturn in individual businesses.
Interestingly, Ambani''s success has dwarfed the controversies that surround him, notably his spat with Bombay Dyeing''s Nusli Wadia. Ambani lives in Mumbai with his wife, two sons - Mukesh and Anil - and their wives. He does not believe in retirement and continues to create ripples in the corporate world. Facebook Twitter Linkedin EMail. Looking for Something? Indeed, the collective stream of visitors had begun with the news of his hospitalisation on June Mumbai's Breach Candy Hospital had became a gathering ground of the who's who of the country.
Politicians, industrialists, film stars—it seemed as if there was no one whose life Dhirubhai had not touched. The trust and faith in the man was almost infinite. Stories about his humility, power and reach are the stuff of urban legends.
At the height of Indo-Pak tension, many of his supporters believed that even in the case of war, his Jamnagar refinery would remain safe. Dhirubhai has the goodwill of many top Pakistani generals, they whispered confidently.
Such was the belief in the man. A businessman who had known him closely summed it up best"If the doctors can just get him back to his senses, Dhirubhai will pull through. We have faith in his willpower. The man who wouldn't ever give up, finally went down fighting the grim battle for survival for 13 days at the Breach Candy hospital in Mumbai. In July , he and Desmond Ball, a professor at the Australian National University and world-renowned expert on intelligence matters, published Death in Balibo, Lies in Canberra that was an incriminating documentation of the criminal connivance of the Australian government in the deaths of five journalists in Balibo, East Timor.
The meticulously-researched and riveting study had revealed the workings of a clandestine system of deceit, and named those involved in a year trail of flagrant cover-ups and abject denials.
McDonald and Ball explored how, at first light on 16 October , Indonesian special forces stormed the East Timor village of Balibo, killing the five reporters. Between and , as foreign editor with the Sydney Morning Herald , he covered the Asian financial crisis, the collapse of the Suharto regime, and the East Timor crisis.
All the while earlier that McDonald had been researching and writing The Polyester Prince , he was told more than once that the Ambani family was itself working on a volume on the life and times of Dhirubhai Ambani.
The family indeed was, and the effort saw the light of day in the form of a voluminous, slickly-produced opus titled Dhirubhai Ambani: The Man I Knew , published in March under the name of his widow Kokilaben. Later in the year, another book was released, this one by an old associate of Dhirubhai Ambani—AG Krishnamurthy, founder of advertising agency Mudra Communications.
When Krishnamurthy started Mudra in March , he had only one client: Reliance. It was that typical hands-on book for budding entrepreneurs and managers. Soon, he got cracking on an updated version of The Polyester Prince. Still, the detailed introduction from the original work where McDonald had delineated his encounter with Dhirubhai down to the pre-publication injunction against the book was left out. Passing mention of an alleged attack on Tina Munim, whose wedding with Anil that the writer had attended, was expunged, as was another passing remark about a murderous attempt on the life of Nusli Wadia.
References to the Gandhi family and others like then finance minister and later President of India, Pranab Mukherjee, were either toned down or removed altogether.
But her government gave Dhirubhai a parting gift. Over the —77 fiscal year April- March Dhirubhai had accumulated REP licences both from its own exports and from purchases in the market, worth some 3 crore rupees. On 7 February, about three weeks after the elections were announced; the government was persuaded to exempt all polyester yarn imports under REP licences issued since April from customs duty, which was then per cent.
It was a gift of 3. This fiscal move had been allegedly facilitated by Mukherjee, a great friend of Dhirubhai. The ministry of finance also supervised the Reserve Bank of India, the central bank, whose governor is often a recently retired head of the ministry. Through its banking division the ministry also effectively directed the 26 nationalised banks through highly politicised board and senior management appointments.
It supervised the insurance companies and other financial institutions such as the Unit Trust yarn imports under REP licences issued since April from customs duty, which was then per cent. In , Reliance was given letters of intent for a 75, tonne a year purified terephthalic acid PTA plant at Patalganga in Maharashtra.
The fait accompli of its 25, tonne polyester lament yarn plant was retrospectively endorsed by raising the permitted capacity from the original 12, tonnes. Thus, many could argue that the book was more of an indictment of the moth-eaten Indian fiscal system than of Ambani himself. To beat the system to get ahead, it was necessary to exploit the human frailties of its power holders.
Everyone did it. Ambani did it most effectively. Those who managed to get industrial licences also managed to see to it that others did not. This was done by money, influence and political muscle power. A nexus came to be established between a section of industrialists, a section of politicians and a section of bureaucrats.
There was more: the virtual extortion of Nusli Wadia by Congress scion Sanjay Gandhi, with tacit approval of his mother Indira, who had just stormed back to power in January Wadia demurred. We do not have black income. He knew the reason he had been summoned, but really it was not the way his company operated. He talked on, and then noticed Indira was doodling on papers on her desk, looking away. Wadia took his leave, and received a curt nod from Indira Gandhi.
Second, these fanatical or insecure followers have found an ally in the courts. Although the Supreme Court has tended to act on the side of the freedom of expression, lower courts have been less wise. Judges who are malleable or publicity-hungry pass injunctions forbidding the free circulation of books and works of art. Few petitioners have the time, or money, or energy, to wait and fight till the case reaches the Supreme Court a process that can take years.
A ban once invoked is therefore rarely revoked. Threats to seek injunctions in every high court across India, and some heavy phone calls, got the edition pulped. The injunction, obtained without contest from a junior beak in the Tis Hazari court house, was a superfluous coup de grace. In and even now, if a book is bandied around as one that should be read and discussed, it is The Polyester Prince.
There are many reasons why this remains a classic case study. First, the book came to be pulped even before it had been published. In that, the injunction set a deadly precedent. This was not about a book being banned; it was about a book being stopped from being published altogether. Nifty 18, Polycab India 2, Market Watch. Budget
0コメント