People from all walks of life showed up to honour the memory of the man whom Bachchan called India’s "first capitalist." Mukesh Ambani, Chairman of Reliance Industries, said it sent out the message that "all Indians had united to honour Dhirubhai."

President Kalam, with his impish sense of humour, said that he has taken his task of delivering the first memorial lecture very seriously and had prepared for it by "reading many books" and "even going to the Internet." His lecture, ‘Growth is Life’, was illustrated with two couplets by the classical Tamil poet Thiruvaluvar. A true leader, he noted, would always defeat problems and never be defeated by them.

The Reliance Group founded by Dhirubhai is India’s largest business house with total revenues of Rs. 80,000 crore (US $ 16.8 billion), cash profit of over Rs. 9,800 crore, net profit of over Rs. 4,700 crore and exports of Rs. 11,900 crore. The group’s activities span exploration of production of oil and gas, refining and marketing, petrochemicals (polyester, polymers and intermediates), textiles, financial services and insurance, power, telecom and infocom initiatives. Reliance emerged as India’s "Most Admired Business House" for the second successive year in a TNS-Mode survey for 2002.

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is India's largest private sector company on all major financial parameters with gross turnover of Rs. 65,061 crore, cash profit of Rs. 7,565 crore, net profit of Rs. 4,104 crore, net worth of Rs. 30,327 crore and total assets of Rs. 63,737 crore. RIL features in the Forbes Global list of the world's 40 best big companies and in FT Global 500 list of the world's largest companies.

RIL has emerged as the 'Best Managed Company' in a study by Business Today and A. T. Kearney. RIL was named in the World's Most Respected Companies list published by Financial Times based on a global survey and research conducted by Price Waterhouse Copers. RIL also emerged as the most respected among Indian companies and amongst the 10 most respected energy and chemical companies in the world.