- published: 11 Mar 2016
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Vijay Mallya (Kannada: ವಿಜಯ್ ಮಲ್ಯ; born on December 18, 1955 in Calcutta, West Bengal, India) is an industrialist and a second-time member of India's parliament. He is the chairman of the UB Group – one of India's largest conglomerates,[citation needed] with diverse interests in brewing, distilling, aviation, pharmaceuticals, real estate, engineering, fertilizers, biotechnology and information technology.
He is the son of industrialist Vittal Mallya. He took over as the chairman of the company at the age of 28 after his father's sudden demise in 1983.
Mallya attended the La Martiniere, Calcutta boys school, and graduated with a Bachelor in Commerce degree from St. Xavier's College, Kolkata. While in college, Mallya was interning in his family businesses. After he graduated, he interned at the American part of Hoechst in the United States.[not in citation given]
At the time of his father's death, Mallya was unanimously elected Chairman of United Breweries. As part of his modernisation bid, he consolidated the various companies under one umbrella group called the "UB Group", spun off non-core and loss-making businesses and focused on the core business of beverage alcohol.Kingfisher beer controls more than 50 per cent market share of India's beer market. The beer is available in 52 countries outside India and leads the way among Indian beers in the international market.United Spirits Ltd, the flagship of the UB Group, has achieved the historic milestone of selling 114 million cases, becoming the largest spirits company in the world by volume.
Deepika Padukone (born 5 January 1986) is an Indian actress and a former model. She appears mostly in Hindi as well as Tamil and Kannada language films. Born to badminton player Prakash Padukone, she chose to become an actress and not pursue a career in sports.
Padukone made her acting debut in the 2006 Kannada film Aishwarya. The following year, she made her Hindi film debut in Om Shanti Om, for which she earned the Filmfare Best Female Debut Award. It also remains her biggest commercial success so far. She subsequently appeared in films such as Love Aaj Kal (2009) and Housefull (2010). While the former earned her a Filmfare nomination in the Best Actress category, the latter emerged as a commercial success.
In addition to acting, Padukone is also the ambassador of prominent brands such as Tissot, Sony Cybershot, Nescafe and Kingfisher Airlines.
Padukone was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. Her father, Prakash Padukone, is a former badminton player of international repute, and her mother is a travel agent. Her father was then training in Denmark in the sport and when she was eleven months old, her family moved to Bangalore, Karnataka, India. Padukone also has a younger sister, Anisha, born on 2 February 1991.