Indian tycoon dies at home

Calcutta News.Net
Monday 1st September, 2008

Indian tycoon Krishna Kumar Birla, whose family empire included industries from sugar to newspapers, died over the weekend at the age of 90.

Birla, whose business holdings included sugar, fertilizer, chemicals, heavy engineering, textile, shipping and newspaper companies, had been suffering from pneumonia, according to a family statement.

The statement said he had passed away peacefully at his Kolkata residence.

Birla, a member of one of India's super-rich business families, was the son of Ghanashyam Das Birla, a leading Indian industrialist and a close associate of Indian independence icon Mahatma Gandhi.

He had been unwell for the past two weeks, and came just a month after his wife Manorama Devi Birla died.

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