NEW DELHI, AUGUST 14The death of reigning Big Bull of the Indian stock market Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, who passed away in Mumbai on Sunday morning, was mourned by the country’s top figures, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, industrialist Ratan Tata, Union Ministers and leaders from several parties.Hugely contributed to financial worldIndelible contribution… He was passionate about India’s progress. His passing away is saddening. PM ModiSon of an income tax officer, he is survived by his wife and three children. Born in 1960, Jhunjhunwala grew up in Mumbai where he graduated from Sydenham College in 1985 and then enrolled at the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.Investing just Rs 5,000 in stock markets while still in college, his aggressive play in the stock markets made him India’s 36th richest billionaire in India, according to Forbes’ latest listing, with an estimated net worth of around $5.8 billion (about Rs 46,000 crore).Jhunjhunwala had investments in over three dozen companies, including Titan, Star Health, Rallis India, Escorts, Canara Bank, Indian Hotels, Agro Tech Foods, Nazara Technologies and Tata Motors. But a majority of his wealth initially came from huge concentrated bets with calculated risks such as in Titan and Indian Hotels Company, he had once said in an interview.At the time of his passing away, Jhunjhunwala had just started diversifying away from stocks and had recently joined hands with former heads of Jet Airways and IndiGo to launch Akasa Air, India’s newest budget carrier. Its maiden flight took off from Mumbai to Ahmedabad only on August 7, a week before his passing away.Jhunjhunwala’s profile grew after he and his wife called on PM Modi in October 2021. It helped that his views matched that of the ruling NDA.His flagship investment company was Rare Enterprises (named after the first two letters in the name of Rakesh and his wife Rekha) and he was compared to legendary American investor Warren Buffett, whose bets on shares never went wrong. However, some of his favoured shares, especially in the infrastructure sector, did not match expectation but Jhunjhunwala usually scored on some other scrips. Like Buffet, Jhunjhunwala was open about his desire to make more money and flaunted his political and industry connections unabashedly.Twice there were murmurs about Jhunjhunwala’s investments. In one case, he paid a penalty of Rs 37 crore to SEBI and in another nothing emerged from rumours that he made Rs 70 crore in too quick a time by trading in shares of Zee Enterprises. But he was respected for his research-based bets on stocks that brought him millions.