I have known Somenath Ghosh as well as many of his batchmates since the late eighties.
It is very surprising that the 1974 and 1975 batches of all the IiTs are very affluent and philanthropic. Close to 33% if the batch is millionaires. I had put it down to coincidence till Shantaram Kane , our guide and philosopher on ancient wisdom decided to dig deeper into it.
After some serious study he came up with an astrological statistic that every 29 years, the astrological star chart creates leaders who change the world. This position of Jupiter was reached in 1954 and then again in 1983 and then again in 2002 and so on. And it is indeed true that the IiT batches with students born in those years have a disproportionate number of billionaires.
Let’s consider the IITK batches of 1974 and 1975. Rakesh Gangwal redefined affordable air travel. Anupam Narayan redefined branded hospitality (he is now making his magic work at Taj Hotels). Arindam Bose is the person who Kr’s creation of the biosimilars industry. Umesh Rakhra built India’s first venture funded startup. Ashok Jhunjhunwala made deeptech happen thanks to the IIT Research Park. He also invented the OTP as we know it (all brilliant inventions look obvious in hindsight), sat on the boards of both SBI and BSNL (that is how the otp was invented), set up the first domestic deeptech fund, initiated electric vehicles for public transport and …. It is a long list. That is why the IIT Alumni Council felicitated him as Vishwaguru. Arun Seth is the father of mobility as we know it having been chairman of British telecom and then board member of Airtel (his son runs the Bombay Canteen restaurant in Mumbai). Vijay Raghavan became the Principal Scientific Advisor to the GoI. There are endless big company founders in the batch – Rahul Gautam of Sleepwell, Indigo paints, a forging major in Gujarat, prof Uday Desai who was Director of IIT Hyderabad, Silicon Valley billionaire Ananth Jagannathan, MiT brain plasticity expert Mriganka Sur, one of Russias largest technology traders Dr. Anil Kejriwal ……. And there are many many names yet to go. This is just a partial list from my excel sheet.
The estimated net worth of the 1974 and 1975 batches of IIT Bombay, Kanpur, Delhi, Kharagpur and Chennai batches alone crosses a TRILLION USD. And I have extremely conservative numbers.
A little more than the entire forex reserve of India. I have yet to add Roorkee, BHU, Dhanbad etc
It is these networks which give the IIT Alumni the power that they wield.
Quietly
Confidently.
Many of these also run funds – a format that makes their purchase power 10x or even 50x of their personal worth.