Newsmakers once

Bharat Ram

A descendant of the Mughal kotwal of Delhi, Bharat Ram of Delhi Cloth Mills Ltd (the name was changed to DCM Ltd in the mid-1980s when Swraj Paul mounted a takeover bid on it along with Escorts Ltd) was a power to reckon with in his heydays.

He lorded over a large business ranging from textiles to sugar, cement, fertilisers and chemicals. His company was talked of as the breeding ground for CEOs, having churned out names like Shiv Nadar, Ashok Soota, N R Dongre and Arjun Malhotra. There was no door in the corridors of power that didn't open to Bharat Ram.

He was elected president of FICCI and was also appointed by the government as the chairman of Indian Airlines. His red sandstone house in South Delhi, Lal Kothi, was a landmark building.

Bharat Ram was a patron of the arts and played golf much before these became popular as "networking activities".

Fortunes took a turn for the worse after there was a three-way split in the family in 1989. He lost control over several lucrative businesses like sugar, cement and fertilisers.

Over the years, the family has exited from high-profile joint ventures like DCM Daewoo and DCM Benetton. Only SRF Ltd, run by his second son, Arun Bharatram, continues to do well.

Some time back, he even moved out of Lal Kothi. Financial constraints, it is understood, forced him to sell the house. Over the years, Bharat Ram has slowly faded away from the limelight.

Bhai Mohan Singh

It was said that the 1975 Hathi Committee Report, which gave a huge boost to Indian pharmaceutical companies, was written in the drawing room of Bhai Mohan Singh, the founder of Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd. That might have been an exaggeration, but there was no doubting Bhai Mohan Singh's skills at "environment management".

His annual report of the early 1970s would have his picture with Indira Gandhi on the front page. President V V Giri had flown specially to Mohali, Punjab, to inaugurate Ranbaxy's factory in the early-1970s, though the investment was only a paltry Rs 1 crore.

Those who served with Ranbaxy in the 1970s marvelled at his ability to get import licences for drugs. Bhai Mohan Singh, recipient of no less than two national awards, was everybody's friend.

Bhai Mohan Singh was also the man who built India's first pharmaceutical superbrand, Calmpose, in 1968.

He was among the first to realise the possibilities thrown up by the change in the patent regime in 1970: Indian companies could produce any drug in the world so long as a non-infringing process was used. Over the years, his company delivered some of the biggest blockbusters in Indian medicinal history like Roscillin, Cifran and Revital.

By 1993, Bhai Mohan Singh had outlived his utility for Ranbaxy. In a particularly nasty boardroom battle, he was ousted by his son, Parvinder Singh.

Amongst his three sons, Bhai Mohan Singh had doted upon Parvinder. He never recovered from the setback. Indifferent health and the agony of functioning in the oblivion has reduced Bhai Mohan Singh to a pale shadow of his earlier all-powerful self.