Basant Kumar Birla (12 January 1921 – 3 July 2019) was an Indian businessman of the

Birla family The Birla family is a family connected with the industrial and social history of India. Foundations The Birla family origins lie with the Maheshwari caste of Bania Vaishya traders but they were outcast from their traditional community in 1922 ...

. He was chairman of the Krishnarpan Charity Trust,

BK Birla Institute of Engineering & Technology B.K. Birla Institute of Engineering & Technology (BKBIET) is an engineering college affiliated to Bikaner Technical University (earlier affiliated to Rajasthan Technical University) and located in Pilani, Rajasthan, India. It was founded in 2007 ...

(BKBIET) and various educational

trust Trust often refers to: * Trust (social science), confidence in or dependence on a person or quality It may also refer to: Business and law * Trust law, a body of law under which one person holds property for the benefit of another * Trust (bus ...

s and institutes.

Biography

Birla, the youngest son of philanthropist

Ghanshyam Das Birla Ghanshyam Das Birla (10 April 1894 – 11 June 1983) was an Indian businessman and member of the Birla Family. Birla family history Ghanshyam Das Birla was born on 10 April 1894 at Pilani town in Jhunjhunu district, in the region known as R ...

, was born on 12 January 1921. By fifteen years of age, he was already actively associated with a large number of companies and eventually became the chairman of Kesoram Industries. In this role, he concentrated on the industries of cotton,

viscose Rayon is a semi-synthetic fiber, made from natural sources of regenerated cellulose, such as wood and related agricultural products. It has the same molecular structure as cellulose. It is also called viscose. Many types and grades of viscose ...

polyester Polyester is a category of polymers that contain the ester functional group in every repeat unit of their main chain. As a specific material, it most commonly refers to a type called polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Polyesters include natural ...

and nylon yarns,

refractory In materials science, a refractory material or refractory is a material that is resistant to decomposition by heat, pressure, or chemical attack, and retains strength and form at high temperatures. Refractories are polycrystalline, polyphase, ...

, paper, shipping, tyrecord,

transparent Transparency, transparence or transparent most often refer to: * Transparency (optics), the physical property of allowing the transmission of light through a material They may also refer to: Literal uses * Transparency (photography), a still, ...

paper, spun pipe, cement, tea, coffee,

cardamom Cardamom (), sometimes cardamon or cardamum, is a spice made from the seeds of several plants in the genera ''Elettaria'' and ''Amomum'' in the family Zingiberaceae. Both genera are native to the Indian subcontinent and Indonesia. They are r ...

chemicals A chemical substance is a form of matter having constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Some references add that chemical substance cannot be separated into its constituent elements by physical separation methods, i.e., wit ...

, plywood, MDF Board, etc. In 1959, he established the Indo Ethiopian Textiles Share Company, which was the first major joint venture by any Indian industrialist. In response, the

Emperor of Ethiopia The emperor of Ethiopia ( gez, ንጉሠ ነገሥት, nəgusä nägäst, "King of Kings"), also known as the Atse ( am, ዐፄ, "emperor"), was the hereditary monarchy, hereditary ruler of the Ethiopian Empire, from at least the 13th century ...

Haile Selassie I Haile Selassie I ( gez, ቀዳማዊ ኀይለ ሥላሴ, Qädamawi Häylä Səllasé, ; born Tafari Makonnen; 23 July 189227 August 1975) was Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974. He rose to power as Regent Plenipotentiary of Ethiopia ('' ...

, awarded him the medal of the

Order of Menelik II The Imperial Order of Emperor Menelik II is an Ethiopian order established in 1924 by then-Regent Tafari Makonnen, during the reign of Empress Zewditu I, in order to honor the memory of Emperor Menelik II. The Imperial Order was often referred to ...

, the highest Ethiopian award. On 13 April 1942, he married Sarla, the daughter of activist and writer Brijlal Biyani, after having been introduced to each other by

Jamnalal Bajaj Jamnalal Kaniram Bajaj (4 November 1889 – 11 February 1942) was an Indian industrialist. He founded the Bajaj Group of companies in the 1920s, and the group now has 24 companies, including six that are listed on the bourses. He was also a c ...

and

Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...

in 1941. They had a son,

Aditya Vikram Birla Aditya Vikram Birla (14 November 1943 – 1 October 1995) was an Indian industrialist. Born into one of the largest business families of India, he oversaw the diversification of his group into textiles, petrochemicals and telecommunications. ...

and two daughters, Jayshree Birla and Manjushree Birla. He was the chairman of the Krishnarpan Charity Trust, which runs an engineering college named

Pilani Pilani is a small city situated in the Shekhawati region of Rajasthan, India. Administratively, it forms a part of Jhunjhunu district. The place became popular since the establishment of BITS Pilani.The city is also the home to some of the old ...

Rajasthan Rajasthan (; lit. 'Land of Kings') is a state in northern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the largest Indian state by area and the seventh largest by population. It is on India's northwestern si ...

, the Swargashram Trust, which administers a

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

school in Rishikesh. He also established

Birla Public School Vidya Niketan Birla Public School Pilani is a boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of " room and board", i.e. lodgi ...

Qatar Qatar (, ; ar, قطر, Qaṭar ; local vernacular pronunciation: ), officially the State of Qatar,) is a country in Western Asia. It occupies the Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it sh ...

and the Birla College of Arts, Science & Commerce in

Kalyan Kalyan (Pronunciation: əljaːɳ is a city on the banks of Ulhas River in Thane district of Maharashtra state in Konkan division. It is governed by Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation. Kalyan is a subdivision (Taluka) of Thane district ...

near Mumbai. He is the author of several books, including an autobiography entitled ''Svantah Sukhaya''. Birla died on 3 July 2019, at the age of 98.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Birla, Basant Kumar 1921 births 2019 deaths Businesspeople from Kolkata Founders of Indian schools and colleges Indian businesspeople in textiles Rajasthani people 20th-century Indian philanthropists Recipients of Order of the Holy Trinity (Ethiopia)

Biography

See also

References

External links