True Grit: The phenomenal growth of the Indian entrepreneurial spirit
From JRD Tata to Dhirubhai Ambani and Sanjeev Bikhchandani, how entrepreneurs helped India through its transition from an agrarian economy to state-controlled industry and on to an era where unicorns
Dhirubhai Ambani is the lighthouse example of an entrepreneur, who created an equity cult in Indian stock markets. A dispatch clerk at A Besse & Company, he was sent to manage an oil filling station at Aden, in Yemen, where he roamed the souks to watch merchants trading goods worth millions in global currency. In 1958, he returned to India and set up a textile trading company. The brand’s
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Jaswantiben Popat and six others—Jayaben Vithalani, Parvatiben Thodani, Ujamben Kundalia, Banuben Tanna, Chotadben Gawade and Laguben Gokani—thought up this enterprise on the terrace of their building in Girgaum, Mumbai, in 1959. Their first production, a kilo of papad earned 8 annas. Shri Mahila Griha Udhyog Lijjat Papad became a revolution that changed the face of cottage industry in In
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Har Prasad Nanda and his brother Yudi arrived in Delhi from Lahore after Partition. To impress and revive his business contacts, Har Prasad hired a suite of rooms at The Imperial, Delhi’s most expensive hotel. It worked. The Escorts Group played a pivotal role in India’s agricultural growth, especially in farm mechanisation. In 1961, it started manufacturing its own tractors, and more tha
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Agricultural scientist Dr MS Swaminathan is renowned for his leading role in introducing and developing high-yielding varieties of wheat and rice in India. India’s Green Revolution started in 1966, leading to an increase in food grain production, especially in Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh.
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Azim Premji was studying electrical engineering in Stanford University, USA, in 1966 when he was called upon to handle the family business, due to the sudden demise of his father. He was just 21. Under Premji’s leadership, Wipro metamorphosed from a ₹70-million company making hydrogenated cooking fats into a pioneer of integrated business technologies and process solutions.
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Karsanbhai Patel graduated with chemistry and worked as a lab technician at Gujarat’s geology and mining department. In 1969, he started an after-office business of detergent powder, made and packed in his backyard. Patel would sell these packets door to door for ₹3 per kg, a third of the price of leading detergents. It was an instant success. Patel’s Nirma brand of detergent, named after
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In the 1970s, TCS began exporting its services and pioneered the global delivery model for IT services, with its first offshore client in 1974. Its first international order came from Burroughs, one of the first business computer manufacturers. Faqir Chand Kohli started as an engineer with Tata Power Company, and rose through the ranks to become the deputy general manager. In 1969, he was
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After graduating in zoology from Bangalore University in 1973, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw went to Ballarat University in Melbourne, Australia, and qualified as a master brewer. Mazumdar-Shaw started as a trainee brewer in Carlton & United Beverages, and joined Biocon Biochemicals in Ireland as trainee manager in 1978. In the same year, she founded Biocon India in collaboration with Biocon Bioche
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The Infosys legend began in 1981 when NR Narayana Murthy dreamt of forming his own company, along with six friends. Getting wife Sudha Murty’s savings of ₹10,000 as seed money was Murthy’s first big break. The second break came in 1991, when Indian doors to liberalisation were flung open. Infosys became the first Indian company to be listed on the US NASDAQ. While working in France in the
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Dr. Anji Reddy is a pioneer in pharmaceutical research in India, founding Dr Reddy’s Laboratories in 1984. The company transformed the Indian bulk drug industry, from being import-dependent in the mid-1980s to self-reliant in the mid-1990s, and finally into the export-oriented industry that it is today. Starting a full-fledged R&D laboratory in 1992, DRL invested about ₹1.12 billion in R&
