Ultra-wealthy Indian businesswoman, Akshata Murty, wife of the next British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, found herself in the spotlight last April, revealing the lifestyle of the couple in the midst of a purchasing power crisis in the Kingdom -United.
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Considered by the British tax authorities as a person “not domiciled” in the United Kingdom, Akshata Murty’s income, from abroad, was therefore not taxed. This status, perfectly legal, was a stain, in the midst of a purchasing power crisis, fueling the criticisms which were already aimed at her husband, who was very reluctant to help households more.
After being strongly criticized because of the millions saved in taxes thanks to this status, the wife of Rishi Sunak, then British Minister of Finance, immediately announced that her income abroad would now be taxed in the United Kingdom.
“I do it because I want to, not because the regulations require me to,” she said.
Conservative Rishi Sunak had denounced a “smear campaign” coming from the ranks of the Labor opposition. “Dirting my wife to get at me is awful,” he said in an interview with the tabloid The Sun in the face of the first serious crisis calling into question his meteoric political rise.
“My wife was born in India, she was brought up there” and “it would not be reasonable or fair to ask her to cut ties with her country simply because she is married to me”, he pleaded.
richer than the queen
42-year-old Akshata Murty owns nearly $1 billion in Infosys, an Indian technology giant co-founded by his father NR Narayana Murthy in 1981 and now worth an estimated $100 billion. .
This represents a fortune larger than that of the late Queen Elizabeth II, which amounted to some 350 million pounds (420 million euros), according to the British newspaper The Sunday Times.
Akshata grew up in Bangalore, with her wealthy father, under the strict upbringing of her mother Sudha Murty, the first woman to be appointed as an engineer in the automotive group Tata Motors.
Rishi Sunak and his daughter | AFP archives
She forbids Akshata and her brother Rohan from television at home and forces them to go to school by rickshaw, like all their other classmates.
Considered by some to be “the favorite grandmother of Indians”, Sudha Murty, 72, also a prolific author, has enabled the construction of 60,000 libraries in India.
“My parents raised me and my brother with strong philanthropic values, and volunteer work in deprived areas allowed me to experience the challenges faced by women in India,” said Akshata Murty.
Studies in the United States
She left in 1998 to study economics in the United States, first at Claremont McKenna College in Los Angeles, California.
Akshata Murty and Rishi Sunak meet a few years later at the prestigious Stanford University in California, where both are preparing a master’s degree in business. He, from a modest background, receives a scholarship.
In the hierarchical Indian society, the parents of Akshata Murty will accept that she marries this simple doctor’s son, originally from Southampton, in the south of England.
Her father Narayana Murthy will give his assent to his daughter’s wedding plan, in which he admits that Rishi Sunak corresponds in every way to his description: “brilliant, handsome and above all honest”.
fashion brand
Some 1,000 guests, including politicians, business leaders and cricketers, will attend their wedding in 2009.
Akshata Murty created her own fashion brand in 2010, Akshata Designs before becoming director of the investment company Catamaran Ventures, founded with her husband, in 2013.
The couple, who have two daughters Anoushka and Krishna, own at least four properties, including a home in London’s upmarket Kensington district worth £7 million ($7.9 million). ) and an apartment in Santa Monica, California.