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Legendary industrialist Krishna Kumar Birla was a man of many facets, with an equal passion for not just expanding his well-known, and much respected, business empire founded by his father, but also towards philanthropy and education.

Birla was for long considered the force behind the Indian sugar industry, which he joined as a 22-year-old. Besides media and sugar, his empire spans some 40 firms in fertilizers, chemicals, heavy engineering, textiles and shipping.

The companies include Zuari Industries, Chambal Fertlizers, Paradeep Phosphates, Sutlej Industries, Birla Textile Mills, Oudh Sugar Mills, Texmaco, Simon India, India Steamship, ISG Novasoft, and Hindustan Times Media.

In his innings at the helm of Indian industry, he also headed several institutions like the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci), the Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA) and the International Chambers of Commerce (ICC).

“He was an outstanding visionary, a great parliamentarian, a business leader par excellence and a builder of modern educational and scientific institutions,” said Ficci president and Rajya Sabha member Rajeev Chandrasekhar.

Born in Pilani in Rajasthan on Oct 12, 1918, he was the person responsible for building and expanding the reputed Birla Institute of Science and Technology - which has often been rated on par with the Indian Institute of Technology.

He was the eldest surviving son of industrialist Ghanshyam Das Birla.

Along with another legendary second-generation industrialist, late J.R.D. Tata, Birla had co-authored what is called the “Bombay Plan” that outlined the role of businesses and the government in building a nation.

The seeds of corporate social responsibility in India were sown in that document which also spoke about the role of industries, entrepreneurs and policy makers in modernising and developing what was then a backward India.

He also had an equal passion for charity. It is not, therefore, surprising that the landmark Lakshmi Narayan temple in the capital - visited by hundreds every day - is also referred to as Birla Mandir.

A former member of the Rajya Sabha for 18 consecutive years, KK Babu, as he was referred to by his associates and admirers, was also the chair of the Hindustan Times group, which is one of the largest circulated national dailies.

The stylish and well-groomed industrialist, whose suits and shirts came from London’s Jermyn Street and Saville Row, also wrote highly readable reminiscences on his many foreign travels with his wife for the Hindustan Times till about a month ago.

His close associates said he just could not bear the separation from his wife Manorama Devi who died in Kolkata July 29. He is survived by daughters Nandini Nupani, Saroj Potddar and Shobhana Bhartia, the vice chair of Hindustan Times.

Birla was so comfortable with change and transformation that even when the country started the ambitious economic liberalisation programme in the early 1990s and dispensed with the regime of licences and quotas, he was fully supportive - unlike many others who even formed an informal anti-liberalisation lobby group called the “Bombay Club”.

“There were many business leaders who were worried, who were apprehensive, who were nervous about the changes,” recollected Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who as India’s finance minister then was the architect of the reforms programme.

“But Birla understood the importance and the relevance of what we were doing and I valued his support then as I value it now,” Manmohan Singh recalled last December, while releasing Birla’s autobiography - “Brushes with History”.

The book, published by Penguin, has vignettes of his relations with some legendary Indians like Mahatma Gandhi, Rajendra Prasad, Madan Mohan Malaviya, Jayaprakash Narayan and Morarji Desai.

Penguin said Birla inherited a legacy in which the creation of wealth, philanthropy and political leadership were all regarded as part of nation-building.

“Spiritual strength and moral values were part of the personal credo.”

Chinese central government departments misused or mismanaged more than 46 billion yuan ($6.73 billion) last year, including using disaster relief money to build government offices and diverting funds to speculate in stocks, the National Audit Office said on Thursday.

An audit of 53 central government departments and their subsidiary units found the misuse or embezzlement of 4.52 billion yuan in 2007, down from 7 billion yuan the year before, the audit office said in a statement on its website.

In government spending, the auditor found “managerial irregularities” in the use of another 41.7 billion yuan, including illegal loans and the misappropriation of billions of yuan from public housing funds.

It said 192 people had been prosecuted or handed administrative punishments and another 14 detained.

Offences were committed across a raft of departments, including the education and commerce ministries, the National Bureau of Statistics and the State Administration of Taxation.

China has warned corruption is so endemic as to threaten the ruling Communist Party’s grip on power, but Beijing permits little independent oversight of government spending.

In June, the country’s auditing watchdog found that 11 city governments had kept more than 186 billion yuan, or more than 70 percent of revenues generated from land sales, off their books to spend freely without supervision.

China Development Bank, a state lender with a roughly 3 percent stake in Barclays, was found to have illegally granted 9.1 billion yuan in loans. The audit office said the bank was also liable for 24.57 billion yuan in misused loans, of which 5.8 billion yuan had been invested in stocks and property.

The auditor said the Agricultural Bank of China, the last of China’s “big four” banks awaiting a government bailout, had 24.3 billion yuan in irregular operations.

It added that China Everbright Bank, the People’s Insurance Co (Group) of China and the China Reinsurance Group Corp had misused 16.79 billion yuan.

The audit also found that China’s four state-owned asset management firms — Huarong, Cinda, Great Wall and Orient — could face difficulties because they had not earned enough from selling non-performing assets to pay the interest on their debt.

European stock markets steadied on Thursday in subdued trade that focused on the banking sector after overnight gains in New York and earlier in Tokyo, dealers said.

London’s FTSE 100 index of top shares rose 0.21 percent to stand at 5,539.90 points in late morning trade.

In Paris the CAC 40 won 0.06 percent to 4,375.55 points, while Frankfurt’s DAX 30 slipped 0.16 percent to 6,310.97 near the half-way stage.

In the foreign exchange market, the European single currency climbed to 1.4765 dollars.

Wall Street swung higher Wednesday as an upbeat report on orders for big-ticket manufactured goods helped offset worries about the economic outlook and a big jump in oil prices.

Japanese share prices edged higher on Thursday as many investors stayed on the sidelines ahead of domestic economic data, dealers said.

In Paris, Credit Agricole saw its share price jump 6.06 percent to 14.01 euros after the French bank announced better-than-expected earnings.

France’s biggest retail bank reported weak second-quarter net profits of 76 million euros (112 million dollars), as its financial and investment services suffered from depreciation of assets.

The figures beat some analysts’ forecasts for the quarter but were heavily down on the same period in the previous year, when net earnings were 1.292 billion euros.

Shares in French peer BNP Paribas rallied 2.34 percent to 59.80 euros.

Britain’s banking sector was also bolstered. In London trading, HBOS shares won 4.94 percent to 307.75 pence and Royal Bank of Scotland gained 3.16 percent to 228.75 pence.

In Frankfurt, carmakers continued to suffer at the hand of resurgent crude oil prices.

BMW and Daimler shares fell by 1.36 percent and 1.88 percent, to stand at 27.28 euros and 39.35 euros respectively.

Across the Atlantic on Wednesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied 0.79 percent to close at 11,502.21 points.

The Nasdaq composite advanced 0.87 percent to 2,382.46 points and the Standard & Poor’s 500 broad-market index rose 0.80 percent to 1,281.66 points.

Trading was light with many participants absent ahead of the Labor Day weekend in the United States, which is the traditional end of the summer season.

In Asia on Wednesday, Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei-225 index rose 0.12 percent to close at 12,768.25 points as investors awaited key data.

Japan on Friday releases its consumer price index and industrial production data for July, offering the latest signs on the path for the world’s second-largest economy, which is teetering on recession.

Hong Kong’s key Hang Seng Index fell 2.3 percent to 20,972.29 points, driven by a dire performance by the Chinese telecoms sector and retailer Esprit, dealers said.

Diageo PLC, the world’s largest producer and distributor of alcoholic drinks, said it is pushing ahead with its focus on premium sales as it posted a small rise in full-year net profit on Thursday and cut its earnings forecasts for the current year.

The maker of Johnnie Walker whisky, Guinness stout and Smirnoff vodka earned 1.52 billion pounds ($2.8 billion) for the year ending June 30, up 2.7 percent from 1.48 billion pounds a year ago.

Revenue rose 8 percent to 8.09 billion pounds ($14.9 billion) from 7.48 billion pounds, underpinned by sales of scotch in Latin America, beer in Africa and premium brands in North America.

The earnings met Diageo’s predictions of a 9 percent rise in operating profit and a 7 percent lift in sales, assuaging fears by some analysts that the company would not meet its targets amid the rising cost of raw materials like grain, energy, glass and packaging and an anticipated downturn in demand due to the global economic slowdown.

The London-based company also remained relatively upbeat about the coming year, despite lowering its forecast for operating profit in the current financial year to a rise of 7-9 percent.

“You can’t be certain, but you can be confident,” Diageo Chief Executive Paul Walsh said of the company’s forecasts given the prevailing economic climate, adding that its brands — which also include Captain Morgan rum, Baileys liqueur and Gordon’s gin — had strong sales momentum to push through any accelerated slowdown.

“The other thing I would say about our brands is that they have faced world wars, they have faced revolutions, they have faced more economic cycles than we will see and they are today faster, more profitable and appealing to more customers than ever before,” Walsh added.

The company’s shares closed up 2 percent at 1,000 pence ($18.27), after initially dipping lower on the London Stock Exchange.

“Inevitably, the company’s outlook for 2009 is rather less bullish, and the ongoing rise in commodity costs could yet erode some of its operating margins,” said Hargreaves Lansdown analyst Richard Hunter. “Nonetheless, the company is well positioned to withstand slowing economic growth.”

Diageo’s vast geographical spread has helped insulate it from the general economic downturn, particularly its inroads into emerging markets in Asia and Latin America where demand for its premium drinks like single malt whiskies is booming.

Walsh said the company planned to continue its strategy of increasing its range of “super-premium” products to counteract declining markets for beer and cheaper liquor brands in Britain, the United States and Europe.

Over the year, Diageo bought a 50 percent stake in Dutch vodka brand Ketel One and also added Zacapa rum and Rosenblum Cellars wine to its stable of brands.

The company now employs some 300 people worldwide who are focused on promoting its “reserve” brands, and has rolled out high-profile advertising campaigns as well as a revenue-sharing deal for U.S. rapper Sean “Diddy” Coombs to promote its Ciroc vodka.

Questioned about that strategy at a time when many consumers are tightening their belts, Walsh said that demand for “affordable luxuries” remained.

“People are not necessarily drinking more, but are wanting to drink better,” he said. “There’s still this nucleus of consumers that can access the best and want to do so.”

Walsh added that price increases and improvement in the sales mix had covered a net increase of 3 percent in input costs over the past year.

Chief Financial Officer Nick Rose said that price increases would continue for certain brands, noting that the company’s earnings forecasts included around 4 percentage points from pricing and improvements to the sales mix.

Rose highlighted the company’s strong performance in North America, where there had been concerns that a slowdown in consumer spending would have a strong impact on the company’s lucrative spirits business.

Net sales in the region were up 5 percent, including a 7 percent rise in spirits growth, as demand for “priority” and “reserve” brands offset weakness in “value” brands — there was a 10 percent drop in net sales of “ready-to-drink,” or premixed, products.

“North America remains in pretty good shape,” said Rose, adding that the company’s view on the region remained “reasonably robust.”

Among Diageo’s best sellers across all regions were Smirnoff, which saw net sales grow by 10 percent and Johnnie Walker, which posted a 12 percent rise in net sales.

Sales of Diageo’s trademark Guinness stout rose 6 percent, with more than 50 percent of that growth coming from Africa.

Shares of MBIA Inc. (MBI.N) jumped before the open on Thursday after the bond insurer agreed in a deal to reinsure $184 billion of municipal bonds backed by its rival FGIC Corp.

MBIA’s stock was up 18 percent at $14.12 a share, its highest level since April.