Name : Kabir Mulchandani Age : 34 Company : Baron International Started in : 1993 Start-up amount : Rs 6 crore Current turnover : More

than Rs 1,250 crore All the family started with was a local radio brand. But the young Mulchandani, who looks more a silver-screen star than a hard-nosed businessman, has taught his people to think big. He has turned marketing rules in consumer electronics upside down by pioneering the trade-in concept, through which the Japanese Akai brand, manufactured and hawked by Mulchandani, bit off everyone else's marketshare. Problems with the revenue authorities and a divorce with Akai were setbacks, but he quickly recovered, and returned through a tieup with Japanese mega-brand Aiwa too.

 Name : Kalanidhi Maran Age : 37 Company : Sun TV Started in : 1993 Start-up amount : Rs 25 lakh Current turnover : Rs 400 crore Kalanidhi Maran: The son of Murasoli Maran started out from scratch with a media channel, in an era when television channels were still suspect business. Maran has shown that there is a vast electronic media market out there in the regional outbacks, and he is not finished yet. He was last heard announcing, of all things, a Bengali regional channel that he said would be at least as successful as his Malayalam venture, Surya.

 Name : Naresh Goyal Age : 52 Company : Jet Airways Started in : 1993 Start-up amount : Not clear Current turnover : Around Rs 1,900 crore Rewriting rules in customer service, and using close links with the powers-that-be. Goyal has consolidated his position in five years as the successful survivor of the mid-nineties private airlines bloodbath. Jet Airways currently boasts of a fleet of more than 25 Boeings, has announced plans to buy a fleet of ATR craft and flies 155 routes to 30 destinations.

Name : Raghavendra Rao Age : 39 Company : Orchid Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals Started in : 1992 Start-up amount : Rs 1.6 crore Current turnover : Rs 350 crore In the early 80's, this IIM (A) graduate, after brief stints with Ashok Leyland and Indian Organics, joined an Oman-based firm where he started and nurtured several businesses as disparate as pharma and hotels. Back in India in 1992, he set up Orchid Pharmaceuticals with his savings to make a range of cephalosporin products.

 Name : Pradeep Kar Age : 43 Company : Microland Started in : 1989 Start-up amount : Rs 20 lakh Current turnover : Rs 181 crore Kar began his career in Wipro and went to Silicon Valley before returning to India to set up Microland 18 years ago. He now employs more than 900 people in a business with revenues last year of $100 million. Amazon.com, one of the sensations on the Net, is one of Microland's largest customers. A man known to take hard decisions, Kar recently announced that he was pulling entirely out of hardware, to concentrate on Internet services and computer education, the two major growth areas in the Indian information technology industry.

SURESH RAJPAL - THE MAN CHASE BACKS Suresh Rajpal left Hewlett Packard to start e-capital. Powered by Chase and Oppenheimer, he wants to set up a global business in telecom and finance software. Rajpal is known to walk his talk

A scene of his lifestyle

On top of a cafeteria within the Indian Institute of Technology in south Delhi is the office of Suresh Rajpal, president and chief executive officer, eCapital Solutions. It is afternoon and corporate India is hard at work. But here, there is none except Rajpal and his secretary, Christine Parker. Rajpal, his trademark bewildered expression all over his face, is set to leave for a game of tennis at the Gymkhana Club. He will change into shorts inside his Mercedes on the way.

 In less than five years, Rajpal plans to make eCapital India's most admired software company, get it listed at Nasdaq, have 1,500 software professionals on its rolls and nose a turnover of $500 million (Rs 2,150 crore). A foot-high stack of applications is lying on Rajpal's table. "Nobody in the business has as much brand equity as Rajpal does,. "He has a deep and serious understanding of management and business practices," says Rajendra Pawar, vice-chairman and founder of NIIT.

History
A far cry from the partition days when the three-year old Rajpal, having been ousted from Quetta, lived in a one-room tenement above a sweet shop at Chandni Chowk, Delhi's cramped old quarter.

MEET JASU SHAH, NEW MEDIA BARON

It certainly isn't wired, but the Mumbaibased Chip has been good enough to take a large byte of the Indian computer magazine market. And just when you thought that there was nothing new that could be done with computer magazines, one man rewrote the rules completely. The Jasu Shah, the newest media-baron.

 From engineering to computer magazines may be a strange switch but, as a business associate says: "Shah has an uncanny knack of spotting an opportunity."

HOW 'DESH' BECAME ONE THE RICHEST INDIANS Gururaj Desh' Deshpande doesn't think it's a big deal that Fortune magazine says he has a cool company. Nor that Wall Street has pushed up the market cap of his year old Sycamore Networks to more than $18 billion.

 The billionaire from Karnataka is entirely down to earth. And the fact that he's probably become one of the richest Indians in the world after the astonishing stock performance of Sycamore. Deshpande is too cool a customer to bother about just how wealthy he is -- or how quickly the Sycamore stock is climbing. You have to be slightly crazy to be an entrepreneur says Deshpande

THE MOLECULE MAKER

A.V. Rama Rao's firm Avra Labs has struck gold in contract research, winning deals from the global pharma giants When A.V. Rama Rao retired in April 1995, it wasn't like he was going to just stop working. After all, the man who used to be director at the Hyderabad-based Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT) could have his pick of jobs.

 But this was 1995, when contract research was non-existent in India. Rao began Avra Laboratories, a pure R&D company, with an investment of Rs 1 lakh, transferring some of his assets to the company. He also took a loan of Rs 2 crore from the Technology Development Board (TDB) under the Department of Science and Technology (DST). Apart from this, he got a Rs 50-lakh loan from the State Bank of India

 Avra is a family affair -- elder son Rama Krishna, an MBA, helps run the company. Daughter Radha, a doctor of medicine and a biochemist, is on the research staff. Younger son Chandra Shekhar, who's finishing his Ph.D in inorganic chemistry at Cambridge, is due to join the company.

A.V.Rama Rao (C) & Sons

 In four years, Avra has earned Rs 10.2 crore, all from multinational clients, including Rs. 3.3 crore as profit. It also has four US patents. Says R.A. Mashelkar, Director General of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) at that time said, "Avra is unique. The entire enterprise is being driven by the knowledge of one scientist."

Michael Dell: The Man Behind Dell

The CEO and chairman of leading online PC retailer DELL The entrepreneurial & leadership skills of Michael Dell were well manifested in his interests and business ventures during his school days

Narayana Murthy and Infosys

Narayana Murthy set up Indias leading software company Infosys Murthy turned a small software development venture that he had set up with his friends in 1981, into one of the leading companies of the country Infosys grew rapidly throughout the 1990s He distributed the companys profits among the employees through a stock option programme and adopted the best corporate governance practices In 1999, the company became the first Indian firm to be listed on NASDAQ Stock Market In 2000, Infosys was poised to become a true global company

The Ramoji Group

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Lijjat Papad: Women & Entrepreneurship

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Dhirubhai Ambani and Reliance

Dhirubhai started his early career at Aden Reliance group was started in the days of licence raj He grabbed every opportunity that came his way and built Reliance to a Rs. 620 billion company till the time of his death His entrepreneurial abilities and leadership skills helped him develop the potential to turn ideas into reality

Mumbais Dabhawalas
The Dabhawalas who provide a lunch delivery service in Mumbai have been in the Business for over 100 years In 1998, Forbes Global magazine conducted an analysis and gave them a Six sigma rating of efficiency Their delivery process, coding system and ability to work as a team has helped them to achieve a common goal

Self Employed Womens Association: Empowering Women in India

SEWA works for betterment of the women in the unorganized sector The activities include banking, child care, healthcare, housing, legal aid etc

Biocon: Kiran Mazumdar Shaws Entrepreneurial Dream

Biocon India is the number one biotech company in Asia in terms of revenues and market capitalization The woman behind Biocon- Kiran Mazumdar Shaw is now the richest woman in India Kiran recognized the future potential of biotechnology industry when not many people in India knew about it The entrepreneurial and leadership skills of Kiran helped her meet the challenges in terms of gathering resources when she launched her biotech start up

Kerry Packer: Australias Richest Media Baron

Known for his deal making abilities, Packer rose to become one of the most dominant figures in the global media industry He transformed the broadcasting and television industry in Australia