India In-Focus — Billionaire Rakesh Jhunjhunwala dies at 62; US says India hid Russian origin of fuel shipped to US

India In-Focus — Billionaire Rakesh Jhunjhunwala dies at 62; US says India hid Russian origin of fuel shipped to US
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Updated 14 August 2022
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India In-Focus — Billionaire Rakesh Jhunjhunwala dies at 62; US says India hid Russian origin of fuel shipped to US

India In-Focus — Billionaire Rakesh Jhunjhunwala dies at 62; US says India hid Russian origin of fuel shipped to US

RIYADH: Stock investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, dubbed India’s Warren Buffett with an estimated net worth of $6 billion, died on Sunday morning at age 62, local media reported.

A chartered accountant by profession from the desert state of Rajasthan, Jhunjhunwala started dabbling in stocks while in college and went on to manage a stock trading firm, RARE Enterprises.

The cause of death was not immediately known.

The promoter of India’s newest airline, the ultra low-cost Akasa Air, Jhunjhunwala appeared days ago at its public launch. He is survived by his wife and three children.

Major politicians and business leaders mourned his death on social media.

“Rakesh Jhunjhunwala was indomitable,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote on Twitter.

Former Deutsche Bank co-CEO Anshu Jain dies

Anshu Jain, a top finance executive best known for helping German lender Deutsche Bank AG take on the largest Wall Street firms, died overnight on Saturday after a five-year battle with cancer, his family said. He was 59.

Jain, who was born in India, spent two decades building Deutsche Bank into one of the world’s top universal banks. He was the first non-European to lead the German institution.

In the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008 and the European debt crisis that followed, Jain pushed Deutsche to remain Europe’s “last man standing” as US firms pulled ahead in global banking.

He resigned from the German lender in 2015, and had been the president of US financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald since 2017.

“He will be remembered for his leadership in financial services and his deep commitment to conservation,” said Larry Fink, chief executive of BlackRock Inc, who said he knew Jain well.

Born in the Indian city of Jaipur, Jain earned his bachelors at the University of Delhi before completing an MBA at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.

US says India hid Russian origin of fuel shipped to US

The US has expressed concern to India that it was being used to export fuel made from Russian crude, through high-seas transfers to hide its origin, to New York in violation of US sanctions, a top Indian central banker said on Saturday.

The US Treasury Department told India that an Indian ship picked up oil from a Russian tanker on the high seas and brought it to a port in Gujarat on the west coast, where it was refined and shipped on, said Reserve Bank of India Deputy Governor Michael Patra.

US sanctions on Moscow for its February invasion of Ukraine prohibit the import to the US of Russian-origin energy products, including crude oil, refined fuels, distillates, coal and gas.

“The refined output was put back on that ship, and it set sail without a destination. In the mid-seas it received the destination so it went to New York,” Patra said at an event to celebrate 75 years of India’s independence.

 

(With input from Reuters)