Wipro founder chairman Azim Premji on Monday said the pandemic has been a "magnifying glass" for structural inequities and injustices that exclude millions of citizens from a life of basic dignity, and has made clear the fundamental role of public systems.
Philanthropic contributions made by India's ultra high networth individuals (net wealth of over Rs 1,000 crore), also known as UHNIs, have fallen sharply to Rs 4,230 crore in FY22, from Rs 11,821 crore the previous financial year, according to the India Philanthropy Report 2023 by Dasra and Bain & Co, which was released on Wednesday. The report says that the dramatic fall, almost by a third, was due to the fact that contributions by the Azim Premji Foundation dropped by Rs 9,000 crore due to a share buyback of Wipro, which helped the foundation to access liquidity directly. However, the report laments that even excluding the Premji Foundation's contribution, "Indian UHNI contribution has not kept pace with wealth creation" and is "below par, with a 5 per cent contraction in FY2022".
Wipro said on Thursday that Azim Premji's son Rishad, chief strategy officer and member of the board, will take over as the executive chairman. Azim Premji, however, will continue to serve on the board as non-executive director and founder chairman.
The voting rights with the promoter will ensure the interests of the promoter family as well as minority shareholders are protected in future, said corporate governance advocates and corporate lawyers.
Azim Premji and his family gave away Rs 7,904 crore (Rs 79.04 billion) in philanthropy, up 1,645 per cent!!! over the previous year.
Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani and his wife Nita Ambani topped a list of power couples dominated by celebrity pairs from Bollywood, according to the annual survey results released by the Indian Institute of Human Brands (IIHB) in Mumbai on Wednesday. Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone followed the Ambanis at No 2, and Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma occupied the third position. Five other couples from the corporate world made it to the list - Infosys founder Narayana Murthy and Sudha Murty at 10th, Adar and Natasha Poonawala (Serum Institute) at 11th, Azim and Yasmeen Premji (Wipro) at 16th, Anand and Anuradha Mahindra (Mahindra Group) at 19th, and Kumar Mangalam and Neerja Birla (Aditya Birla Group) at 20th position.
Digital, cloud, engineering services, and cybersecurity will drive Wipro's growth. 'Based on approval from the board, we have decided to step up our investments significantly in these four big bets,' Premji said in his last address as executive chairman.
Azim and Naushad Shaikh (36) then stitched a 109-run partnership before the latter was trapped leg before by leg-spinner Priyanshu Khanduri.
'By design or default, the BJP's election strategy militated against the very essence of Karnataka politics and the idea of Karnataka.'
The actor reportedly died in his sleep.
Senior batter Sheldon Jackson struck an unbeaten century as Saurashtra beat Maharashtra by five wickets in the final to win their second Vijay Hazare Trophy title.
An MP-MLA court in Prayagraj on Tuesday held gangster-politician Atiq Ahmed and two others guilty in the 2006 Umesh Pal kidnapping case.
'The BJP's defining character is Hindutva. The party's political strategy is based on a combination of Hindutva+Development.'
Radhakishan S Damani, investor and promoter of the D-Mart supermarket chain, has broken into the elite club of the top 100 global billionaires. Damani, who grew up in a single-room apartment in Mumbai, is now ranked 98th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index with $19.2 billion as his net worth. The index is a daily ranking of the world's richest people. The other Indians on the top 100 rich list ahead of Damani are Mukesh Ambani, Gautam Adani, Azim Premji, Shiv Nadar, and Lakshmi Mittal.
A video of the incident which occurred at around 6:25 AM shows a cow darting towards the road when it was hit by the vehicle carrying Ahmed. The cow fell near the road divider. After the incident, the vehicle stopped for a while before resuming the onward journey.
The Opposition on Sunday lashed out at the Bharatiya Janata Party over the killing of gangster-politician Atiq Ahmad and his brother Ashraf Ahmad in Uttar Pradesh's Prayagraj district, alleging that 'jungle raj' and 'mafia raj' were prevalent under its rule.
Several loyal party old guards were unhappy and had expressed their displeasure openly about "migrants" scuttling the chances of them becoming ministers.
Authorities on Thursday exhumed the bodies of Mohammad Altaf Bhat and Mudasir Gul, two civilians killed in the Hyderpora encounter, for handing them over to their families, officials said.
Atique Ahmed is one of the most feared dons of Uttar Pradesh today. There was another don who preceded Atique and had he survived, Atique wouldn't have been around today, recalls Sudhir Bisht.
The octogenarian, who has already announced his retirement from electoral politics, is sought to be put on the pedestal by the governing party's central leaders.
Among the many exits from the billionaire's club in 2022 are D Uday Kumar Reddy of Tanla Solutions (net worth down 66 per cent), Sushil Kanubhai Shah of Metropolis Healthcare (down 65.7 per cent), Vijay Shekhar Sharma of One97 Communications (down 66 per cent), and C K Birla (down 43.4 per cent).
'Ram Sene or Bajrang Dal were supposed to be fringe elements, but with the BJP in power, they have become mainstream elements.' 'The government is either keeping quiet or indirectly supporting them.'
The veteran leader is also expected to use his good offices in unifying the faction-ridden party in the state, ahead of assembly elections just six months away.
A summary of all the action from Day 2 of the Ranji Trophy matches played on Wednesday.
US hedge fund Tiger Global and Japanese investment giant SoftBank have trimmed their investments in Indian start-ups by over a third - from $3.8 billion in the second half of 2021 to a mere $1.08 billion in H1 2022, according to data from Venture Intelligence. While SoftBank's investments in India dropped from $1.9 billion in H2 2021 by more than a fifth to only $0.33 billion in H1 2022, that of Tiger Global fell from $1.92 to $0.74 billion in the same period. Private equity (PE) fund trackers point out that this year most of the deals that Tiger Global has invested in are in the early stage (up to series D), and only a few are in the series E and above.
'The Ayodhya anniversary, every year brings back the tragic memories. Politicians should let people's wounds heal and not reopen them to suit their agenda'
A Parliamentary panel has asked the Ministry of Labour and Employment to use and reconcile the data and studies conducted by credible agencies with that of retirement fund body EPFO for depicting real picture of job loss in the country especially in the situation like COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic had an impact on employment in the country as the economic activities slowed down due to lockdown restrictions imposed by central as well as states to contain the spread of deadly virus from March in 2020.
In the Mumbai game, the spotlight was on Shaw, who proved his mettle, by toying with the Jharkhand attack
A roundup of the Vijay Hazare Trophy one-day matches played on Wednesday
'There's a lot of continuity in terms of basic values and there's also a lot of new thinking based on the generational shift... it's a combination of continuity and change,' says Wipro Chief Executive Officer Abidali Neemuchwala.
Gautam Adani, who is diversifying into many businesses, saw a 48 per cent rise in his wealth to Rs 1.40 lakh crore and moved up two places in rankings to being the fourth richest Indian. Hinduja Brothers and HCL's Shiv Nadar were ranked 2nd and 3rd. Wipro's Azim Premji slipped two places to fifth place.
Indian industry's doyen Jamsetji Tata has emerged as the biggest philanthropist globally in the last century by donating $102 billion, as per a list of top-50 givers prepared by Hurun Report and EdelGive Foundation.' Tata, the founder of what has now become a group spanning interests from salt to software, is ahead of others like Bill Gates and his now estranged wife Melinda who have donated $74.6 billion, Warren Buffet ($37.4 billion), George Soros ($34.8 billion) and John D Rockefeller ($26.8 billion), the list showed.
It remains to be seen whether the ban of its parent organisation will weaken the SDPI or will it be able to further consolidate its voter base.
IT czar Azim Premji has given away almost half of his stakeholding in Wipro, India's third largest exporter of software services, to philanthropy.
Senior batter Manoj Tiwary combined with the young Sudip Kumar Gharami to steer Bengal to a hardfought seven-wicket win against Baroda to climb to the top of Group A in the Ranji Trophy.
Ruturaj Gaikwad blazed his way into the record books, smashing seven sixes in a 43-run over as Maharashtra outplayed Uttar Pradesh