Some business presentations are designed to maintain the idyll, and these pass on information and yield yawns in equal measure. Other interactions are intended to shake things up and storm some brains. Reliance-ADAG chairman Anil Ambani?s media conferences are invariably the latter. At one such Mumbai gathering to announce Reliance Power?s IPO, Ambani was at his ebullient best, stirring the hall up and issuing quotable quotes. At one point after a series of questions had been asked, he expressed surprise that several journalists had turned up from the same TV channel. ?This is our strategy,? said the scribe, ?to ensure that we ask you the maximum questions.? The strategy had succeeded, declared Ambani. And then someone else asked whether the company would venture into the power equipment business. Ambani replied in the affirmative, adding, ?We take a lot of ideas from the media ? this is one of them.?
Fertilisation
Ram Vilas Paswan handles portfolios as diverse as chemicals & fertilisers, steel, and within the former, pharmaceuticals. At a press meet in Mumbai on Rashtriya Chemicals & Fertilisers? premises, Paswan answered several questions on fertilisers. After explaining the details of urea pricing and input costs, someone asked him the status of the draft pharma policy. ?From fertilisers,? he joked, ?you have brought me quickly to pharma.? Then came a question on rising steel prices. Paswan answered, and then added, ?Now, if someone wants to ask me some political questions, you?re
free to do so.?
