In 1966, 21-year-old Azim Premji was studying engineering at Stanford University when he got news of his father’s death. He came back to India and took charge of his family-run company, Western Indian Vegetable Products Ltd, based at Amalner, a small town in the Jalgaon district of Maharashtra. How he took this company, which used to make vegetable oil and subsequently, personal care products, and ran with it to make it one of the biggest IT firms in India, is the stuff of legend. In his 50 years at the helm of Wipro, Premji has been one of the most important contributors to India’s transformation into a knowledge economy.
This is the story of the small town, Amalner, from where both Premji and Wipro claim their roots. You’ve already read FactorDaily editor-in-chief Pankaj Mishra’s long-form story on this; now watch the video to experience the sights and sounds of Amalner.
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Disclosure: FactorDaily is owned by SourceCode Media, which counts Accel Partners, Blume Ventures and Vijay Shekhar Sharma among its investors. Accel Partners is an early investor in Flipkart. Vijay Shekhar Sharma is the founder of Paytm. None of FactorDaily’s investors have any influence on its reporting about India’s technology and startup ecosystem.
