The Vijay Mallya Story is an extraordinarily detailed and lively chronicle of the life of one of India’s most celebrated and reviled businessmen—Vijay Mallya. His extraordinary career spans three decades and is spread across multiple industries. The book covers Mallya’s childhood, his relationship with his father and his inherent deal making abilities. It tracks his meteoric rise with Kingfisher and how the airline led to his downfall. K. Giriprakash has closely followed Vijay Mallya’s career over the last two decades which gives him a unique vantage point to draw an extraordinary portrait of a man whom everyone is fascinated by but not many know.
He was once the King of Good Times - known for his opulent lifestyle, calendar shoots with bikini-clad models, high stakes in an IPL team, and an airline that was the last word in luxury. But the global downturn in aviation and the rising fuel prices worsened Kingfisher's financial ill health. The several thousands of crores loaned to it by a consortium of banks proved insufficient to arrest the slide in its fortunes. By early 2013, the high-flying airline shut shop and closed the doors on disgruntled employees and investors - none of which, though, made any dent in Mallya's own lifestyle as he had pilfered cash from the company and stashed it abroad. Facing charges of money laundering, misappropriation and being a wilful defaulter, Mallya left the country in 2016 for his country estate near London. Kingfizzer: The Mallya Story is the tale of how the king lost his cheer and high spirits, to be remembered for one of the biggest corporate collapses of our time.
A colorful and revealing portrait of the rise of India’s new billionaire class in a radically unequal society India is the world’s largest democracy, with more than one billion people and an economy expanding faster than China’s. But the rewards of this growth have been far from evenly shared, and the country’s top 1% now own nearly 60% of its wealth. In megacities like Mumbai, where half the population live in slums, the extraordinary riches of India’s new dynasties echo the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers of America's Gilded Age, funneling profits from huge conglomerates into lifestyles of conspicuous consumption. James Crabtree’s The Billionaire Raj takes readers on a personal journey to meet these reclusive billionaires, fugitive tycoons, and shadowy political power brokers. From the sky terrace of the world’s most expensive home to impoverished villages and mass political rallies, Crabtree dramatizes the battle between crony capitalists and economic reformers, revealing a tense struggle between equality and privilege playing out against a combustible backdrop of aspiration, class, and caste. The Billionaire Raj is a vivid account of a divided society on the cusp of transformation—and a struggle that will shape not just India’s future, but the world’s.
LONDON CALLING London has emerged as a safe haven for those who want to escape the law in India. Through eyewitness accounts and archival records, DANISH KHAN and RUHI KHAN delve into twelve extraordinary cases of extradition over seven decades to unravel the legal quagmire that has caused much debate in Her Majesty's courts, and consternation in New Delhi's corridors of power. Escaped examines the extradition of billionaire VIJAY MALLYA and diamantaire NIRAV MODI, throws a spotlight on their ultra-luxe world, uncovers the complex ownership of their UK assets and brings to life the intense courtroom battles. The book also chronicles the saga of cricket bookie SANJEEV CHAWLA, now dispatched to India, and that of music director NADEEM SAIFI, who has been exonerated but can never return home. It explores how drug lord IQBAL MIRCHI and terror accused HANIF PATEL evaded extradition, and investigates the loopholes that saved convicted paedophile RAYMOND VARLEY and NRI parents ARTI DHIR and KAVAL RAIJADA, accused of murdering their adopted child. The book reveals the inside story of how RAVI SHANKARAN, the alleged spy, was set free, and how the famed NARANG BROTHERS were snagged for trading in stolen Indian artefacts. Taking a trip through history, the book recounts how a newly independent India managed to bring back two powerful industrialists, DHARMA JAYANTI TEJA and MUBARAK ALI AHMED, who were involved in financial crimes. Escaped decodes why London is an irresistible siren for Indian fugitives.
Dr. Vijay Mallya is not your typical everyday CEO. He has made it to the Forbes billionaires' list many number of times but he doesn't care if he is on the list or not because he doesn't want to be categorized as a ruthless moneymaker. He not only lives like The King of Good Times but he is working overtime to persuade others to live the high life too. Once upon a time, his critics called him the playboy of the east for his glamorous lifestyle but slowly and steadily Dr. Mallya has earned the respect of his detractors. After the launch of Kingfisher Airlines in 2005, he was chosen as the Indian Businessman of the year. The Indian government honored him with the Outstanding Business Leader Award and ETNow selected Dr. Mallya as one of the three big movers and shakers of the first decade of 21st century corporate India. After his father's untimely death, Dr. Mallya became the CEO of a hundred million dollar UB Group and grew it into a multi-billion dollar global empire. He is a genius of a businessman who is the ultimate brand ambassador of his company UB Group. He sets himself high goals and works round the clock to achieve them. His out-of-the-box thinking and business strategies have revolutionized the way brand equity could be grown by businesses in the country. He is a supreme human being and so his business rivals and political rivals are usually surprised by Dr. Mallya's magnanimity. As a politician, Dr. Mallya has been trying really hard to change the Indian political landscape. He is a brand marketing genius but for him, superior customer service always comes first. He goes to extreme lengths to make sure customers are satisfied by his products and services. Dr. Mallya is also a sports fanatic. He owns the Force India Formula One team and has been an instrumental figure in bringing the Formula One Grand Prix championship race to India. He also owns the Indian Premier League cricket team called the Royal Challengers and is very much involved in making a successful championship run for the team. He is also the man who has changed horse racing in India from a gambling den to a classy entertainment venue. For all the critics who downplayed Dr. Mallya's success and bashed his playboy image, it is not surprising that he is having the last laugh. Dr. Mallya and his future generations are set to carry on the Mallya legacy successfully. Long live the King of Good Times.
How did Dhirubhai Ambani build a polyester plant in record time? What made JRD Tata launch India’s first airline? How did Vijay Mallya wrest control of Shaw Wallace from Manu Chhabria? Why did Bhai Mohan Singh fall out with his favourite son and lose control of Ranbaxy? The Portfolio Book of Great Indian Business Stories contains excerpts from a selection of the finest business books published by Penguin Portfolio. This anthology features snippets from the lives of some of the most eminent business leaders India has seen—M.S. Oberoi, Ratan Tata, Aditya Birla and Rahul Bajaj, among others. There are tales of outstanding successes, crushing failures, extraordinary challenges and relentless determination, some of which chronicle the times when these legends were just simple businessmen trying to make a mark. The grit and ruthless persistence of these men defined who they were and the legacies they left behind.
Over the last decade, Indian banks in general and the government-owned public sector ones in particular have gradually got themselves into a big mess. Their bad loans, or loans which haven't been repaid for ninety days or more, crossed Rs 10 lakh crore as of 31 March 2018. To put it in perspective, this figure is approximately seven times the value of farm loan waivers given by all state governments in India put together. And this became the bad money of the Indian financial system. Why were the corporates unable to return these loans? Was it because they had no intention of doing so?Who were the biggest defaulters of them all? Are Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi just the tip of the iceberg?How much money has the government spent trying to rescue these banks?How are the private sector banks gradually taking over Indian banking?Is your money in public sector banks safe?How are you paying for this in different ways?And what are the solutions to deal with this? In Bad Money, Vivek Kaul answers these and many more questions, peeling layer after layer of the NPA (non-performing assets) problem. He goes back to the history of Indian banking, providing a long, deep and hard look at the overall Indian economy. The result is a gripping financial thriller that is a must for understanding a crisis that threatens our banking system and economy.
For the past 25 years, Tamal Bandyopadhyay has been a keen student of Indian banking. A lifelong reporter and journalist, he is an award-winning national business columnist and a bestselling author. He is widely recognised for ‘Banker’s Trust’, a weekly column whose unerring ability to anticipate and dissect major policy decisions in India’s banking and finance has earned him a large print and digital audience around the world. The column won Tamal the Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism (commentary and interpretative writing) for 2017. Banker’s Trust now appears in Business Standard, where he is a Consulting Editor. Previously, Tamal has had stints with three other national business dailies in India, and was a founding member of Mint newspaper and Livemint.com. He is also a Senior Adviser to Jana Small Finance Bank Ltd. Between 2014 and 2018, as an adviser on strategy for Bandhan Bank Ltd, he had a ringside view of the first-ever transformation of a microfinance institution in India into a universal bank. Author of five other books, Tamal is widely recognised as a contributor to the Oxford Handbook of the Indian Economy and Making of New India: Transformation Under Modi Government. In 2019, LinkedIn named him as one of the ‘most influential voices in India’.
In The Inside Story of Indian Banking, journalist and author Sandip Sen deep dives into data and interacts with over 60 bankers, lawyers, analysts and professionals to present a thrilling account of deep-rooted corruption and path-breaking reforms in India's banking industry. He maps the trajectory of Indian banking-from its chaotic beginnings under colonial rule to bank nationalization in 1969, from banking post liberalization to the present-day mergers, and a crisis where frauds balloon as laws are tightened. The book not only highlights the deep-rooted problems, but also offers solutions from bankers themselves.
