Relevance of Kautilya for Today

Swaminathan Gurumurthy became the guide the philosopher of Ramnath Goenka and the Indian Express newspaper group when he was 27 and Goenka 72! The paper's famour campaign against government and corporate corruption in late 1980s unfolded the investigative journalist hidden in Gurumurthy. The Rajiv Gandhi government arrested Gurumurthy to silence him. the fallout was an all out was between the paper and the Government with Gurumurthy leading the Express team. the result: Rajiv's defeat in the 1989 elections. More of Gurumurthy unfolded later. His original thinking on economic issues, his influence in corporate India, and his association with the RSS oarivar added to his powerful personality. he was rated among 50 most powerful persons in India in 1990; as the 8th most powerful; as the 17th most powerful. But far from using his power for personal gain, he made himslef unavailable for any position. He preferred basic work like his ongoing, original study on the community linkages to India's economic model. A keen student of law, finance and accounts, politics and economics, philosophy and religion, Gurumurthy is a rare confluence of the tradition and the modern.