Charles meets India Inc, seeks closer ties

It was a story about Swaraj but had everything to do with the Raj. The situation was not without its ironies -- when the heir to the British crown, Prince Charles, sounded the clapper board for Ketan Mehta's The Rising today.

The Rising is a story about the sepoy mutiny of 1857, which is widely regarded as the first Indian war of Independence.

The Prince then shook hands with Aamir Khan, who plays the role of Mangal Pandey -- one of the main mutineers and the chief protagonist in the movie.

The cheer on the sets was a clear sign that Indo-British ties had reached a level of maturity, with neither wanting to blame the other for the past.

The next halt on Prince Charles' agenda was a meeting with the captains of Indian industry at the Rooftop in The Oberoi.

Corporate India was in full attendance and the captains of industry had clearly taken time out for their brush with royalty.

They had gathered in clusters and the prince went around meeting the different groups. One of the groups had Tata group chairman Ratan Tata, Hindustan Lever Chairman M S Banga and the executive vice-chairman of RPG Enterprises, H V Goenka.

In another group, K M Sheth, the executive chairman of Great Eastern Shipping and Jimmy Sarbh, the head of P&O Australia Ports, rubbed shoulders.

Incidentally, GE Shipping is India's largest private sector shipping company, while P&O Australia is the largest foreign investor in the port sector.

Also present were deal makers like Uday Kodak, Ashok Wadhwa, Shitin Desai and one of India's best known chartered accountants -- Shailesh Haribhakti. The others present included Habil Khorakiwala, CMD of Wockhardt. The pharma company recently acquired its company in the UK -- CP Pharmaceuticals.

The other representatives of the pharma industry were Swati Piramal, the chief scientific officer of Nicholas Piramal, and Cipla chairman Y K Hamied.

Thermax promoter Anu Aga, Chitra Ramakrishnan, the deputy managing director of the National Stock Exchange, and Lalita Gupte, the joint managing director of ICICI Bank, met the prince together.

Providing a sharp contrast to the business suits was Bajaj Auto Chairman Rahul Bajaj who was decked in a kurta. The software lobby was represented by National Association of Sofware and Service Companies (Nasscom) chairman Kiran Karnik, Ashank Desai of Mastek and S Ramadorai, the CEO of software powerhouse Tata Consultancy Services, who had hosted a meeting earlier in the day under the aegis of the of the Nasscom.

Prince Charles had a word and a smile for everyone and mixed around. While it could not be ascertained what transpired in these exclusive meetings -- he made one thing clear in his formal speech -- his love of India.