Business

In 1940, Pishori Lal Lamba settled in New Delhi after moving there from Lahore. He opened a hand-cranked ice cream shop at the Regal Building and named it Kwality. The unusual nam…

In 1907, Mr. Vadilal Gandhi opened a soda fountain in Ahmedabad. At first, Vadilal Gandhi used to churn milk with other ingredients, such as ice, and salt, using a primitive Kothi…

Ferdinando Innocenti, a businessman from Pescia, established a steel tubing facility in Rome in 1922. He relocated the company to Milan in 1931 and established a more capacious fa…

Wardha native and successful businessman Bachhraj Bajaj established a cotton ginning facility there. In 1889, Jamnalal Bajaj was born in the impoverished hamlet of Kashi K…

A group of British businesspeople founded the company in 1892 with an initial investment of Rs 295. Biscuits were first made in a modest Kolkata home. The Gupta brothers, under…

Narandas Desai moved to South Africa in 1892 and bought 500 acres to plant tea. There, he met Mahatma Gandhi and began to admire him. While in South Africa, Narandas Desai studied…

In 1950, Jawaharlal Nehru, India's prime minister, called JRD Tata on the phone. He had an issue. When Indian ladies splurged on expensive foreign cosmetics, there was an issue…

In 1959, Bajaj Auto was given the green light to begin producing two- and three-wheeled vehicles. At the height of the quota and licencing Raj, it was an impressive feat. Although…

After discovering that India lacked a two-wheeler manufacturing environment in 1949, two Parsi gentlemen, Farrokh Irani and Rustom Irani, set out for Czechoslovakia to introduce t…

Nevill Vintcent was a big, blond Britisher born in 1902 in South Africa. He was a good boxer, too. He was commissioned into the Royal Air Force at 20 and, after a short stint in W…

Four Gujarati friends, Champaklal Choksey, Chimanlal Choksi, Suryakant Dani, and Arvind Vakil, founded Asian Paints in a garage, rented at Rs 75 per month in Gaiwadi, Girgaon, Mum…

Rajiv Badlani was working for MCM (Mass Communication and Marketing), a hot shop in advertising, at the time. MCM was founded by a maverick, Kersey Katrak. Rajiv chose to leave as…

During the Swadeshi Movement, people were joining the boycott of foreign products that Mahatma Gandhi had called for. Local inks had not yet been developed at the time. Gan…

After Bengal was divided, a pre-Gandhian Swadeshi movement swept the country. Locals set fire to imported clothing and picketed stores that sold foreign items. Citizens were commi…