Big names: Mukesh’s wife Nita Ambani sharing a moment with Ivanka during the pre-wedding celebrations in Jamnagar, Gujarat. — Reuters
Top global celebrities donned “jungle fever” outfits in India for a trip to the zoo as part of a party thrown by Asia’s richest man.
Pop icon Rihanna, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump are among the guests who jetted in for a three-day gala celebration hosted by billionaire tycoon Mukesh Ambani.
This weekend’s party is an elaborate pre-wedding ceremony for Mukesh’s youngest son Anant and fiancee Radhika Merchant, the daughter of wealthy pharmaceutical moguls.
The three-day gala – which saw Umbrella singer Rihanna perform on Friday for the first time since last year’s Superbowl – continued yesterday with a trip to an “animal rescue centre” housing exotic animals.
The facility is a pet project of Anant’s built in his family’s hometown Jamnagar in western Gujarat state, where the weekend party is taking place.
Indian media reports said the family will host an event held outdoors in the Ambani’s animal rescue centre.
Mukesh, 66, is chairman of Reliance Industries – India’s biggest company by market capitalisation – and the world’s 10th richest person, according to the Forbes billionaires list, worth more than US$116bil (RM549.8bil).
He inherited a thriving industrial enterprise spanning oil, gas and petrochemicals from his father and grew it into a commercial behemoth with lucrative interests in retail, telecommunications and an Indian Premier League cricket team.
Mukesh’s family home – a 27-floor skyscraper dubbed Antilia that reportedly cost more than US$1bil (RM4.7bil) to build and has a permanent staff of 600 servants – is one of Mumbai’s most prominent landmarks.
It was criticised after its 2010 completion by author Arundhati Roy and others for starkly illustrating the wide gulf between India’s business elite and its poor multitudes. — AFP
