The Billionaire Raj

Download or read book The Billionaire Raj written by James Crabtree and published by Crown. This book was released on 2019-07-02 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book The Billionaire's Apprentice written by Anita Raghavan and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2015-06-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Just as WASPs, Irish-Catholics and Our Crowd Jews once made the ascent from immigrants to powerbrokers, it is now the Indian-American's turn. Citigroup, PepsiCo and Mastercard are just a handful of the Fortune 500 companies led by a group known as the "Twice Blessed." Yet little is known about how these Indian emigres (and children of emigres) rose through the ranks. Until now... The collapse of the Galleon Group--a hedge fund that managed more than $7 billion in assets--from criminal charges of insider trading was a sensational case that pitted prosecutor Preet Bharara, himself the son of Indian immigrants, against the best and brightest of the South Asian business community. At the center of the case was self-described King of Kings, Galleon's founder Raj Rajaratnam, a Sri-Lankan-born, Wharton-educated billionaire. But the most shocking allegation was that the éminence grise of Indian business, Rajat Gupta, was Rajaratnam's accomplice and mole. If not for Gupta's nose-to-the-grindstone rise to head up McKinsey & Co and a position on the Goldman Sachs board, men like Rajaratnam would have never made it to the top of America's moneyed elite. Author Anita Raghavan criss-crosses the globe from Wall Street boardrooms to Delhi's Indian Institute of Technology as she uncovers the secrets of this subculture--an incredible tale of triumph, temptation and tragedy.

Download or read book Billionaires in World Politics written by Peter Hägel and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-12-07 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Billionaires in World Politics shows how the privatization of politics assumes a new dimension when billionaires wield power in world politics, which requires a re-thinking of individual agency in International Relations. Structural changes (globalization, neoliberalism, competition states, and global governance) have generated new opportunities for individuals to become extremely rich and to engage in politics across borders. The political agency of billionaires is being conceptualized in terms of capacities, goals, and power, which is contingent upon the specific political field a billionaire is trying to enter. Six case studies explore the power of billionaires in their pursuit of security, wealth, and esteem. The chapter on security analyzes Raj Rajaratnam's relationship to the Tamil cause in Sri Lanka, and Sheldon Adelson's transnational electioneering in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Regarding the economy, the book studies how the Koch brothers' political protection of fossil fuels is affecting climate change mitigation, and how Rupert Murdoch's opinion-shaping is valorizing conservatism across borders. The chapter on social entrepreneurship and esteem examines the role of Bill Gates in the governance of global health and George Soros's attempts to build open societies as a 'stateless statesman'. An analytical conclusion evaluates the prior findings in order to address three major questions: Is it more appropriate to see billionaires as 'super-actors', or as a global 'super-class'? What is the relative power of billionaires within the international system? What does the power of billionaires mean for the liberal norms of legitimate political order?

Download or read book Billionaire Boy written by David Walliams and published by HarperCollins UK. This book was released on 2011-06-09 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A hilarious, touching and extraordinary fable from David Walliams, number one bestseller and fastest growing children’s author across the globey, with EXCLUSIVE audio and video from David Walliams

Download or read book Murder at the Grand Raj Palace written by Vaseem Khan and published by Redhook. This book was released on 2018-06-12 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For a century the iconic Grand Raj Palace Hotel has welcomed the world's elite. From film stars to foreign dignitaries, anyone who is anyone stays at the Grand Raj. The last thing the venerable old hotel needs is a murder. . . When American billionaire Hollis Burbank is found dead -- the day after buying India's most expensive painting -- the authorities are keen to label it a suicide. But the man in charge of the investigation is not so sure. Inspector Chopra is called in -- and discovers a hotel full of people with a reason to want Burbank dead. Accompanied by his sidekick, baby elephant Ganesha, Chopra navigates his way through the palatial building, a journey that leads him steadily to a killer, and into the heart of darkness . . .

Download or read book The Unusual Billionaires written by Saurabh Mukherjea and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2016-08-17 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What makes a company truly outstanding? What is the secret sauce of delivering successful results over multiple decades? What is common to Asian Paints, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, Marico, Berger Paints, Page Industries and Astral Poly? They are Unusual Companies, built by Unusual Billionaires. This book tells the story of these seven companies, handpicked out of 5000 listed on the stock exchange. Built by visionary business leaders, they have delivered outstanding results for a decade and more. How did these companies do it? Why couldn’t this be replicated by other companies? What are they doing differently? Saurabh Mukherjea, bestselling author of Gurus of Chaos, delivers an exceptional book with lessons to learn from these seven businesses. Mukherjea tells you why focusing on the core business is central to corporate success and how a promoter giving up control to the top management could be a boon. He also explains how investors can generate market-beating investment returns from identifying companies such as these using a simple set of metrics. Packed with these learnings are riveting corporate stories of how Hindustan Unilever made an aggressive bid to buy Harsh Mariwala’s business, but had to sell a business to him in a few years, or how Page Industries found an innovative way to stop unionization at their manufacturing units. Other stories include the turnaround of Axis Bank and the boardroom coup that led to its chairman’s exit and how Vijay Mallya sold Berger Paints to the Dhingra brothers. This book is mandatory reading for anyone who wants to understand how business is done successfully in India.

Download or read book The Happy Raj written by Nihal S. Dissanayake and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2011-12-04 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Book No. 3462989 THE HAPPY RAJ wins the FIRST PLACE in the Open Manuscript Competition 2010 organized by the Department of Cultural Affairs, Government of Sri Lanka. THE HAPPY RAJ is a religious and a philosophical novel about happiness and suffering. It uses Buddhist philosophy to analyze human behavior. THE HAPPY RAJ is about billionaire Prof. Happiraja and his project to create his dream KINGDOM OF HAPPINESS in the beautiful island of the Happy Raj. Happiraja plans to help any one to move up the happiness ladder towards eternal happiness levels, with his Sotapatti Meditation Program. In Lord Buddha's words Sotapatti level is higher than that of being a World King. It is in this environment that The Happy Raj saga continues to move into the fourth novel. The Plot Billionaire Prof. Happiraja retires prematurely and moves into The Happy Raj to create an nvironment for stress and mind refinement exercises. His project gets derailed when one of his supervisors, Deva dies mysteriously and his partner, hermaphrodite Cicci jumps in to the burning funeral pyre. Dada, the former owner of the island, destituted by a tsunami wave, is invited as his guest and becomes the first target for his happiness operations. Appearance of a ghost in his old cottage sends 72-year old Dada into the Medical Centre with a heart problem. When Dada leaves for home, his cottage had been refurbished to prevent him falling sick again. Playing with the powerful notebook computer gifted by the Professor when he left the Medical Centre, Dada, a designs engineer, plans to bounce back into active life .When Rev. Aloka arrives to cleanse the island of the ghosts, Dada gets interested in meditation. Two of top Happy Raj executives wear yellow robes to follow the Sotapatti Meditation program in search of Nirvana. Dada gets ordained and becomes the Trustee of the Temple of Happiness. A tsunami wave batters the island immediately after its inauguration, destroying almost all buildings. Prof. Happiraja plans to rebuild the Kingdom immediately. CHAPTER ONE: THE UNIVERSAL LAW OF IMPERMANENCE The fluorescence of the hidden tube lights faltered flickered and disappeared eclipsing the room with a thin cloud of darkness. The shadows hiding like ghosts under the tables, chairs, cupboards, computers and stools, changed their positions, sizes and lengths to extend their tentacles looking for new areas for their control, after suffering several hours under the unfriendly rays of the fluorescent tubes. When a new source of light emerged, creeping stealthily into the room through the narrow openings in the red and yellow curtains that protected the office room of the President; the shadows readjusted their areas of control. The murmur of the air-conditioners faltered and faded off reluctantly to an untimely death. So was the hand of the electric clock that was fixed on to the cream colored walls of the office of the President of the State Polytechnic, Prof. Happiraja. The UPS attached to his computer screeched desperately asking for help and guidance. Embarrassed by the unfriendly disturbances to the serenity of his room, darkened by the sudden failure of the power supply, Prof. Happiraja extended his long and fleshy left hand, covered with a white long-sleeved national costume, and used his plump thumb to ensure complete silence in the room. He thought that the power failure could be due to the political forces operating in the country. He jerked his head that was pivoting at the top of a tall and a slender body to look at the hands of the clock that had lost its indefatigable desire for movement. Its hands told the retiring chief that the time was 9:34; exactly twenty six minutes more for his last meeting with the members of the academic staff who were getting ready to say good bye to their beloved boss....