Gujarmal Modi


Book Description

The year was 1932, and a young man had just been banished from the state of Patiala. His crime? He had refused a glass of wine in the celebratory party at the Patiala Palace. It had not mattered to the maharaja that the man was a teetotaller. The ban proved to be a boon as the thirty-year-old left Patiala and created one of the largest business empires in India. Looking for a new location to set up his factory, Gujarmal zeroed in on a sleepy village, Begumabad, on the outskirts of Delhi. It is here that the seeds of the Modi Group were sown. Starting with a sugar mill, he established a conglomerate with businesses including tyres, textiles, copy machines, cigarettes, pharmaceuticals, oil and steel, to name a few. This is the story of a resolute, ambitious young man who saw adversity as an opportunity and went on to create history. In the process, he set up some of the finest factories, created an industrial town that was way ahead of its time, generated large-scale employment and gave Indian manufacturing new wings. Gujarmal's ten per cent allocation from earnings towards social responsibility, long before it became a corporate buzzword, and human resource initiatives became benchmarks in the history of Indian business. A treasure trove of learnings for modern-day entrepreneurs, this book celebrates the man and his vision, grit, determination and spirit of entrepreneurship.




The IPL Story


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In Love With Death


Book Description

Death is the inevitable fate of every single person on earth. How do we accept the inevitability of our own death? How do we live our lives with meaning? Will money lead us to happiness? Satish Modi examines these questions is a moving, powerful, thought-provoking work based on his own reflections as well as the experiences of people from all walks of life. The result is a fascinating book that teaches us that whoever we are and whatever our aspirations in this life, it is important for each and every one of us to accept our own passing. In doing so we can free ourselves to live as well and fully as possible, guided by the principles of goodness, love and compassion.




Maverick Commissioner


Book Description

The Indian Premier League. Its mere mention forces cricket fans across the world to sit up and take notice. World cricket’s most valued property has only grown stronger with time. Conceived and implemented by Lalit Modi in 2008, the IPL has forever revolutionised the way cricket is marketed and run globally. Modi had built and orchestrated the tournament by his own rules and after the stupendous success of the IPL, the same rules were questioned by the administration. Modi was subsequently banned for life. How and why did it happen? What went on behind the scenes? How did it all start to go wrong between Modi and the others? Are there secrets that will never come out? This book is all about everything you never got to know. Each fact corroborated by multiple sources who were in the thick of things, Maverick Commissioner is a riveting account of the IPL and the functioning of its founder, Lalit Kumar Modi. Did Modi have a long telephone conversation with a BCCI top brass the day he left India for good? What really was discussed? Is Lalit Modi the absent present for the IPL and Indian cricket? Soon to be made into a film by Vibri Motion Pictures, Maverick Commissioner documents things exactly as they happened. No holds barred and no questions left out. It doesn’t judge Lalit Modi. All it does is narrate his story. Who is the real Lalit Modi? Let the readers decide.




Perspectives in Industrial Geography


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The Great Tamasha


Book Description

On a Bangalore night in April 2008, cricket and India changed forever. It was the first night of the Indian Premier League – cricket, but not as we knew it. It involved big money, glitz, prancing girls and Bollywood stars. It was not so much sport as tamasha: a great entertainment. The Great Tamasha examines how a game and a country, both regarded as synonymous with infinite patience, managed to produce such an event. James Astill explains how India's economic surge and cricketing obsession made it the dominant power in world cricket, off the field if rarely on it. He tells how cricket has become the central focus of the world's second-biggest nation: the place where power and money and celebrity and corruption all meet, to the rapt attention of a billion eyeballs. Astill crosses the subcontinent and, over endless cups of tea, meets the people who make up modern India – from faded princes to back-street bookmakers, slum kids to squillionaires – and sees how cricket shapes their lives and that of their country. Finally, in London he meets Indian cricket's fallen star, Lalit Modi, whose driving energy helped build this new form of cricket before he was dismissed in disgrace: a story that says much about modern India. The Great Tamasha is a fascinating examination of the most important development in cricket today. A brilliant evocation of an endlessly beguiling country, it is also essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the workings of modern India.




Sphere of Influence


Book Description

'Does cricket make money in order to exist, or does it exist in order to make money?' In the last three years, cricket has changed more completely than in the preceding three decades, revolutionised by a racy new format, Twenty20, and a glamorous new competition, the Indian Premier League. How did India come to run world cricket? How did clubs owned by billionaires and Bollywood stars begin to shove international competition aside? How did money unite players and divide administrators, amid allegations of massive corruption? Gideon Haigh has followed cricket's biggest story since Kerry Packer's 'World Series' from the beginning: Sphere of Influenceis the result. This insightful collection brings the struggle to save cricket's soul into sharp and disturbing focus.




The Age of Aspiration


Book Description

Nearly four decades ago, Dilip Hiro's Inside India Today, banned by Indira Gandhi's government, was acclaimed by The Guardian as simply “the best book on India.” Now Hiro returns to his native country to chronicle the impact of the dramatic economic liberalization that began in 1991, which ushered India into the era of globalization. Hiro describes how India has been reengineered not only in its economy but also in its politics and cultural mores. Places such as Gurgaon and Noida on the outskirts of Delhi have been transformed from nondescript towns into forests of expensive high-rise residential and commercial properties. Businessmen in Bollywood movies, once portrayed as villains, are now often the heroes. The marginal, right-wing Hindu militants of the past now rule the nominally secular nation, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi as their avatar, one whose electoral victory was funded by big business. Hiro provides a gripping account of the role played by Indians who have settled in the United States and Britain since 1991 in boosting India's GDP. But he also highlights the negatives: the exponential growth in sleaze in the public and private sectors, the impoverishment of farmers, and the rise in urban slums. A masterful panorama, The Age of Aspiration covers the whole social spectrum of Indians at home and abroad.




Life: A Journey


Book Description

A fine collection of Discourses by Swami Akhandananda Saraswati Ji Maharaj of Vrindavan on Life and it's different vagaries.




The Story of Indian Manufacturing


Book Description

This book discusses the role historical events played in determining the pattern of growth of Indian manufacturing. Two important historical events significantly influenced the course of Indian manufacturing from the 15th century AD. The first was the arrival of European merchants via sea route pioneered by Vasco-da-Gamma in 1498 and the other was the dawn of the Mughal Empire in 1526. The book explores how these two events provided the appropriate stimulus for the emergence of traditional flexible manufacturing in India and how they played a vital role in the pattern of growth of the Indian manufacturing: The Mughal Empire created an integrated economy of continental size whereas European trading companies expanded the commercial connectivity of the Indian economy and South East Asia. It further investigates how the circumstances created by the colonial administration, factor endowment and market conditions created the complex forms of manufacturing enterprises that India inherited at the time of independence. It is a valuable resource for students of history, economic history, business history and the history of technology.