
The Billionaires and The Guru: How an Indian Family Burned Through $2B - dragonsh
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-08-16/billionaires-and-the-guru-how-an-indian-family-lost-2-billion
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xaranke
As someone who left India for the US, this article gives me pause as to
whether things have actually changed in shining New India or if it's just a
facade with air conditioning.

More specifically, I'd like to move back at some point and I'm not sure if I
ever should.

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th1nkdifferent
I don't share the negative sentiments expressed by others in response to your
question. I think things have changed significantly for the better. I'll leave
you with these two images - you can decide for yourself if anything has
changed:

[https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/in...](https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/india-2012.jpg)
[https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/in...](https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/india-2016.jpg)

Source: [https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/new-night-
lights-m...](https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/new-night-lights-maps-
open-up-possible-real-time-applications)

Scroll down to India's map and play with it for a while and then ask yourself
whether India has changed for the better.

You may not feel the difference as much as India's villagers and poor.

~~~
coldtea
These two images don't answer the "if it's just a facade with air
conditioning" question.

This just shows that now there are more airconditioners there (well, lights).

Parent was explicitly trying to differentiate between more money/technical
change and different mentality.

~~~
iamshs
Neither do those images show severe lack of hamburgers. Transporting cows can
and has lead to lynchings.

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55555
Sounds to me like two indian brothers realized that a likely result of an
arbitration would indirectly bankrupt their public companies so they started
funneling money to a person they trust to hold onto it for them. just my 2c

~~~
iamshs
This makes sense. This cult has been on a real estate buying spree near their
HQ. Even threatening farmers who refuse to sell.

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rockyj
And here I thought that "Wild Wild Country" on Netflix was too crazy to be
true and something like that would not happen again. (*fixed typos)

~~~
rishabhd
Trust me, you haven't seen anything at all.

~~~
heavenlyblue
It's funny that people are downvoting you for your manner, but frankly
speaking that's exactly the reaction I had to the post.

"Too good to be true"? You're joking, right?

There's loads of people in the world with a high enough status, but who still
are gullible enough because they never really had any deep relationships. Be
it friends, lovers or family.

That's exactly the kind of weaknesses upon which people build religions.

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madengr
What’s the deal with these Gurus, and how can they have millions of followers?
They are simply cult leaders and fraudsters.

~~~
gowld
"Gurus" in India are "Churches" in USA.

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madengr
Oh, I agree. I guess guru and cults have 24x7 compounds; churches don't.

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eric24234
Any indian who has some understanding of veda and caste system will
immediately identify the problem here. It is run by singhs and singhs are not
hindus by that i mean they discard varna system, vedas and caste system. The
current government BJP is a strong religious organization with Brahmins in key
positions who have lots to lose if caste system is abolished. The move by the
indian BJP government is to progress hindutva ideology.

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test001only
It is interesting to see Indians talking of themselves and India as a separate
entity. Now, I am fine with people moving out of the country and I can
understand the appeal. A lot of problems in India have been long solved in the
west and there are problems which are unique to India. But it is hypocritical
to blame the ills on "India" as if it exists without it's people. Citizens
make a country and they are equally responsible whether they like it or not.

~~~
alasdair_
>It is interesting to see Indians talking of themselves and India as a
separate entity.

Apropos of that, I have an Indian acquaintance who is an activist, focusing on
women's rights and poverty. She's told a couple of stories stories about going
into tiny, remote villages in India and telling people about their basic
rights under the law, only to be asked "what is India?" and having to explain
that the place these people live is called "India".

~~~
legolas2412
Probably because India is the name in english. It is called Bharat in Hindi,
other names in other vernaculars.

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mbrumlow
Side note, has anybody read the TOS at bloomberg? Along with getting violation
notices? I MUST allow JS?

[https://imgur.com/a/hsTANvy](https://imgur.com/a/hsTANvy)

Also, their entire TOS looks like one of those shrink wrap licenses. I feel
like people really don't understand how the internet works, and in the long
run they are simply going to break it if the law dictates what software I have
to run or not run to view a website.

EDIT: Link to TOS:
[https://www.bloomberg.com/notices/tos/](https://www.bloomberg.com/notices/tos/)

Really guys, this sort of stuff should not stand, the idea that they own the
ability for you to link to their site is hideous. Even if they are "granting"
that ability today allowing people to front like they have that power should
be stopped. Otherwise next generations will just obey because "it's in the
tos", "it's the law".

~~~
apexalpha
Isn't the 'you need JS' in order to let the captcha work?

I believe I have to whitelist certain scripts in uMatrix before those things
work (or even appear!).

edit: also the website just works for me even without scripts. I think your IP
has triggered a flood warning leading the captcha and for that to work you
need JS (which makes sense).

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mbrumlow
Regardless of why I was interrupted, the TOS is total crap.

~~~
mrguyorama
As they typically are. Hence why they so rarely actually get tested in a court
of law

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mbrumlow
Even if it won't really hold up in a court of law I feel like the notion is to
set some sort of precedence that gives it validity the logger it sits there
unchecked. This is the sort of thing that shapes the next generations of
judges, lawyers, juries and law makers. Over time sentiment will change and we
will be stuck with "well it has always been this way right?".

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unmole
Original title: The Billionaires and The Guru: How a Family Burned Through $2
Billion

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hardwaresofton
The original title is a much better title, not sure why it was changed... This
is more so a story about the brothers and the spiritual leader who apparently
took a bunch of cash from them, not about abuses of India's ruling class

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B-Con
Now it's

> How an Indian family lost $2 Billion

I think we're on the 3rd title.

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vernie
Is this number of title changes normal?

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QML
I’ve seen some writer change their article titles a few times after publishing
— I would guess they’re trying to A/B test or just indecisive.

