https://www.bloomberg.com/search?query=ramdev https://www.bloomberg.com/search?query=ramdev
Excerpts: Twenty-three years ago, when he was a poor young yoga instructor living at the foot of the Himalayas, Baba Ramdev pledged to spend the rest of his life as a sanyasi—a Hindu ascetic. He forswore possessions and renounced the material world. But today he can be found in the most material of places. Turn on an Indian TV, and there’s Ramdev, a supple yoga megastar in saffron robes, demonstrating poses on one of the two stations he oversees. Flip the channel, and there’s Ramdev in commercials selling shampoo and dish soap. Walk any city on the subcontinent, and there’s his face in stores selling the wares of Patanjali Ayurved Ltd. https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/0491151D:IN"; style=" border-top-color:initial;border-right-color:initial;border-left-color:initial;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit; line-height:inherit;, the multibillion-dollar corporation he controls. Ramdev has said his goal is to sell an ayurvedic item, based on India’s ancient medical traditions, for every household need: toothpaste made from cloves, neem, and turmeric; hand soap made from almonds, saffron, and tea tree oil; floor cleaner made from the “natural disinfectant” cow urine. Since 2012, Patanjali’s revenue has climbed twentyfold, from $69 million to $1.6 billion. It’s the fastest-growing company in Indian consumer goods, and Ramdev predicts he will overtake the subsidiaries of multinational giants such as Nestlé SA https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/NESN:SW and Unilever NV https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/UNA:NA as soon as next year. “The ‘gate’ in Colgate will shut,” he once gloated. “Pantene will wet its pants, the lever of Unilever will break down, and the little Nestlé bird will fly away.” It might seem like an impossible arrangement—observing an oath of poverty while also being one of India’s top entrepreneurs. But Ramdev is a master of contortion. Patanjali is an omnipresent brand in India, and though everyone refers to it as Ramdev’s company, he’s not technically its owner or chief executive officer. It would be scandalous for a sanyasi to profit from a corporation, and Ramdev neither owns shares nor takes a salary. He says his net worth is zero. The company calls him merely its “brand ambassador,” a title that belies his power. “If you had to choose the top five living extraordinary Indians, people who have changed the landscape,” says Chiki Sarkar, publisher of New Delhi’s Juggernaut Books, “Ramdev would make the list.” .. Ramdev’s behavior also started to trouble Karamveer, his fellow yoga instructor. “Idealism is easy when you have nothing,” Karamveer told Pathak-Narain. “It’s what you do when you have fame, money, or power that matters.” He left the ashram in 2005. Ramdev had promised he would teach yoga for free, but he began charging people to sit closer to the stage, according to Bhakti Mehta, a TV executive. She traveled with Ramdev to Britain in 2006, where, she said, he required an £11,000 (then $20,000) donation for a home visit and stood on a cloth that could be rolled up to easily collect the money people threw at his feet. “We saw how power-hungry he really was,” she told Pathak-Narain. (A Patanjali spokesman declined to discuss this or other aspects of the book.) ... Ramdev said his noodles were healthy, but India’s Food Safety and Drugs Administration found they had an ash content triple the legal limit. Customers didn’t much care. “Whatever he produces, nobody thought that it is shit,” Patra says. “They thought it is a god-given product.” “We have had no quality cases or quality problems,” Ramdev told me. But Patanjali products have been dogged by such concerns. In April, the Indian Armed Forces stopped selling a popular Patanjali juice to soldiers after it failed lab tests. The next month, the Hindustan Times reported https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/baba-ramdev-s-patanjali-products-fail-uttarakhand-quality-test/story-bXo4XySEajw7ZDby4GISML.html"; title="Ramdev’s Patanjali products fail quality test, RTI inquiry finds" style="border-top-color:initial;border-right-color:initial;border-left-color:initial;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit; line-height:inherit; that a Patanjali health product, shivlingi seeds, had also failed tests. In June, Nepal forced the recall of six products over microbial concerns. ... The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry, an Indian trade organization, has called Patanjali “the most disruptive force in the fast-moving consumer goods market.” In 2016, Credit Suisse Group downgraded its rating for Colgate-Palmolive (India) Ltd. https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/CLGT:IN"; style="border-top-color:initial;border-right-color:initial;border-left-color:initial;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit; line-height:inherit; based solely on the success of Patanjali’s Dant Kanti. A few months later, Colgate started selling its own herbal toothpaste. Hindustan-Unilever Ltd. hired local doctors the same year to revamp its ayurvedic brand, Ayush, with products such as turmeric anti-pimple wash.Ramdev has floated plans for business lines in clothing, private security, animal feed, solar power, and restaurants. He also wants to export Patanjali products to the U.S., U.K., and around the globe. While he no longer speaks of directly entering politics, he enjoys greater influence in India than ever. .. Revenue surpassed $1 billion for the first time in the company’s 2017 fiscal year. Other gurus moved to copy Patanjali’s success and start their own product lines; the New York Times named the trend https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/02/world/asia/a-yoga-master-the-king-of-baba-cool-stretches-out-an-empire.html India’s “Baba cool” movement and called Ramdev its “king.” .. Last year, [Prime Minister] Modi presided over the opening of the Patanjali Research Institute in Haridwar. The jewel of its corporate empire, the facility is described as a place for ayurvedic medicines to be researched and tested with the same rigor as pharmaceuticals in the West. “Swami Ramdev’s herbs help you overcome all problems,” Modi told the crowd, as Ramdev smiled beside him in his saffron. The prime minister then directly addressed Ramdev: “I have greater faith in the power of your blessings, and those of the people, than I have in myself.” The material world went unmentioned. The sanyasi had reached a higher plane
