Branson: You said I make billion dollars before breakfast. I think I’ll just won’t have breakfast the whole day.

NDTV: Richard you are a maverick businessman and you have evolved your brand Virgin into one of the topmost brands of the world. What ticks for you really?

Branson: I try to make a positive difference to all the people’s life. I like to challenge myself, and all the people around me. I love people and love getting out to meeting new people. So life is fantastic. Every minute and every day ticks me.

NDTV: And you also have a love affair with India of sorts because last time we remember seeing you in dhoti and Gandhian cap and sitting with dabba-walahs in Mumbai. What excites you the most about India?

Branson: I think India is, perhaps, one of the most exciting countries in the world at the moment. Its young and vibrant. It’s a happening country. For some years, people weren’t proud of India. I am not sure what made the difference. I think socialism is something that is an idealistic situation, but it just doesn’t work. And I think India has finally realised that. And now that India has in place, free market forces, and people are getting out there, competing and trying to improve products for the Indian consumers and they are competing on the world market as well. India is really coming out of itself. And it’s great to see the smile on Indian faces. And hopefully, more and more Indians are being pulled out of the poverty trap and are being able to enjoy life better.

NDTV: for a businessman like you, the growing economy for you must be very exciting and you have already made your mark now by entering into the telecom sector in a tie up with Tata tele services. But its not totally on your terms. Not the way you wanted it to be.

Branson: In an ideal world, we would like to have anybody from India come to Britain and start any business they wanted, and anybody from Britain to come to India and start any business they want. India has an over protectionistic measures to protect the few big companies you have in India. We can’t start a domestic airline, we can’t start a financial service company. It’s difficult for us to go into retail. We can’t start an MVNL in mobile phones. And we are trying to change that. We are lobbying hard, giving interviews, saying that free markets are actually in the interest of the ordinary Indian persons. So having said that, we have to compromise on some occasions. And I didn’t want to wait for my life for starting a mobile phone company. So we tied up with Tata, which is one of the most respected brands in the world. It has got a great network. We brought the virgin brand to the network. Its is powerful youth brand. And I think together we can do well. The range we got is not exactly we had wanted, but the least we going to get up and going, and hopefully reach 400 million people, we think would like to buy virgin mobile.

NDTV: What are the kinds of benefits it brings for Virgin mobiles?

Branson: First of all, the quality of the phones are very good. The price of those phones are really good. The quality of the products that we are goin to have on those phones are really good. The cost of spending time on the phone is very less as compared to other networks. If somebody phones you, you actually get credit. The longer you talk on the phone, you are actually building up credits you can use for phone calls or for taxes. You get good quality FM on the phones.

NDTV: So you basically want to tap the young population of India that’s growing.

Branson: Yeah, I mean there isn’t really a youth brand in mobile phones. Most of the phone companies have gone for what they perceive to be big business people who spend all the money. We believe that there is enormous youth market in India. I mean 400 people between the age group of 15 to 30 are there. And so we are going to tap the youth market. It is easy to go from being a youth brand to go upwards, but to come down is very difficult. There is something with us to be the youth brand as we have been round the rest of the world. We think we can make a great success.

NDTV: And going into the technical aspect, Tata tele services is still a CDMA player. So will you be talking to other players to get into the GSM market as well?

Branson: the advantage of being a CDMA player is that you don’t get cut off when you are on the phone. And Tata have got an enormous network. And that is why we have gone for that initially. And you don’t have a sim card. You can keep your number and change the phone, which in the past you were not able to do. In an apparent nine months time ot two years time, we would be able to offer that on GSM as well, because we think Tata will, most probably, get the GSM network. At that stage, we would target slightly older audience, and will hopefully get business market in that as well.

NDTV: But you are not talking to other players also. Like the sources have told us that you are talking to Bharti.

Branson: Ideally we will like to work with Tata on everything we do. We have got a good relation with them. They have committed to us. Tata must be the greatest Indian brand overseas and I think Virgin may the biggest brand overseas. We have got a strong march together. They have put their profit into lots of good cause. We have put lot of our profits into good causes. And I think we can achieve a lot together.

NDTV: Yeah but you have ventured into the telecom space in India at a time when another British company, Vodafone, is maturing fast. Isn’t it a tough competition?

Branson: Well we have been competing with Vodafone in lots of other countries in the world and we have done well. And we relish competition. The market is enormous. It is going at almost double digit figure every year. Many people do not have mobile phones, young people, who want to pick up mobile phones in future. And we still think that three years from now, we can reach five million people, having a Virgin mobile. We will be profitable by then. And we can grow from that. The percentage of the total market we have will be relatively small. But in our particular segment, we hope to get, we will see, around 10 to 15 per cent of the youth market.

NDTV: Drifting away from telecom to aviation sector, you also wanted Virgin Atlantic to fly in domestic Indian markets as well. But that is also not really happening.

Branson: we would like to set up a domestic airline in India. We are setting up one in Australia, we are setting up one in Europe, we are setting up one in Africa, we are setting up one in Russia, we are setting up one in Brazil. And so it is sad that Indians are not able to enjoy Virgin domestic experience. And we still have to get the law changed to try to allow an English company to partner up with an Indian company to set up a domestic airline. I lobbied for 15 years to get the permission to fly a Virgin Atlantic flight from Delhi to London. We finally got there. And we’ll keep trying to lobby that the government just doesn’t protect one two airlines. They should actually think of the Indian public as a whole and let competition happen.

NDTV: Lot of people say that you have a breath taking life. Your life is like a fairy tale. Now we have another businessman in India, who is called the king of good times. And you have caught up with him, Vijay Maalya as well. Is there any international alliance in the offering in aviation sector?

Branson: some people compare us. We both got beard and moustache. There is no alliance plan but I met him for the first time in my life yesterday. It was a pleasure to have lunch with him. I have also supported him for the F1 thing. Its nice to have another Indian friend.

NDTV: you have 49 per cent of Virgin Atlantic with Singapore Airlines. Now that’s also on the block. Any updates from there you can give us?

Branson: We have been talking to Singapore Airlines. Like if they want to share, we will be delighted to buy the shares. At this point of time they haven’t said that they definitely want to sell and they haven’t definitely given us a figure. But once they give us a figure, and if we really make billion dollars before the breakfast, we don’t mind buying them.

NDTV: Richard you’ve always believed in building up on your ideas. Like afterwards in Atlantic, you went up to Galactic. Taking people to the space, where they had never been in fairly affordable prices.

Branson: In July of this year, we will fly them over ship for the first time. At the end of the year, we will unveil a spaceship. We will then have around nine months of test ride. And then, I am hoping that my parents and my children will be there on the first flight. And then we hope we will open it up to anyone who wishes to go into the space. Initially the price is not going to be cheap. Its two hundred thousand dollars. But I hope the price will come down. And hopefully, by the time your children are teenagers, they will then afford to go into the space.

NDTV: William Shartner, your good friend and Captain Kirk of Star Trek. You offered him a free ride to the space. But he was found saying that I want a guarantee that I will be brought back too. So what is the kind of guarantee you are giving to people that they will be coming back safe?

Branson: He definitely made it clear that he was quite frightened to go into the space and I got a feeling that he will never actually go into the space. NASA lost about three per cent of all the people that they sent into the space. There technology is about 50 years old. And the biggest problem they had was on the re-entry back into the Earth’s atmosphere. Our technology is brand new. And I think we have overcome some of the technical problems that NASA had, in particular the re-entry into the atmosphere. The whole spaceship turns into a shuttle cock. And instead of having to get the exact tanker right, you can literally come back in like a shuttle cock. And you don’t get th eheat built up that you get in NASA’s space flights. We can’t afford to lose our passengers because we are private enterprise business. So we have to make sure that everybody gets a return ticket. And I am not going to send my family up until am confident. I am not going to send other people until I am confident. And in Virgin Atlantic, we have been flying in the sky for the past 25 years. We have never had such incident. Having said that, obviously space travel is more risky at this stage then airline travel. And anybody going into the space will have to accept that there are more inherited risks in the space travel than the airline travel. But we hope that within three years or so, it will be no great a risk.

NDTV: we have seen so many big ideas coming from you. What is your next big idea?

Branson: The big thing that we are trying to do is come up with fuel. Fuel that will not damage the environment. Out of all the profits that we make out of our 30 businesses, we are trying to invest some to make the fuel. It does not sound very sexy but the world, because of global warming, needs it. Last week, we flew a 747 on partly coconut oil and partly other oil, just to prove that a plane could fly on a bio fuel. But an actual fuel will develop which will hopefully not damage the fuel supply. And that is what we are working on at the moment.

NDTV: Richard, you are getting into the media and you are taking on Rupert Murdoch as well.

Branson: We aren’t taking on Rupert Murdoch. We have quite a battle going on in UK. He has the dominant satellite network and we have the biggest cable network. And we have a few battles going on there. So, we have to get some of their cusrtomers.

NDTV: So while most of the businessmen around the world take their route of acquisition to grow their business, oyu have a different strategy altogether.

Branson: I am a great believer in starting companies from scratch. Because then I think you get much better quality and much more enthusiastic staff, than if you are into buying companies with all the inherited problems that often come when you buy a company. So if we have to start a domestic airline in India. We would like to start completely from scratch with brand new planes. We would like to make sure that we have the most quality airline flight in India, with the best staff. And by doing it that way, we are sure we will have everything right. And we will be sure to make a success of it. But if we had a airline that’s not exactly as we had liked it to be, then turning an airline like that around will be far tougher than starting from scratch.

NDTV: You have been quite outlandish in your promotional techniques. You even wore a bridal gown once. So what is the kind of promotional technique you will use if you come to the Indian domestic airlines market then?

Branson: I will perhaps fly on the wings. I like to make people smile. And if we are launching a new company, we make sure that the people know about it. And I like to have some fun, thinking that the people might have some fun with me.

NDTV: And your histrionics and your series of adventure just continues at this age as well.

Branson: I still feel like I am 20 year old. Some people say you should act as your age. Until I feel I am my age, I am going to continue as a teenager.

NDTV: And you come in films as well. We saw you in FRIENDS and Star Trek. Any Hindi film you going to act in today, we have heard.

Branson: Tonight I must be in my first bollywood film. I might be trying to rescue some beautiful heroines. Whether I am going to be successful or not, there are several bad guys. So I have been practicing.

NDTV: We’ll see Richard Branson, the star in a movie soon, in one of the Hindi films.

Branson: I think it may be quite soon now.

NDTV: We have heard that all businessmen, while they are stuck to their computers and blackberry all the time, you are one of the guys who still carries a black notebook and write down your ideas. Is it still the case?

Branson: Yeah it is the case. I am a bit old fashioned when it comes to that. But I like to make notes and scribble down conversations. It helps as I have good notes. I am not particularly computer literate. I can just use the Internet but not very well.

NDTV: But you can still make billions of dollars.

Branson: I can still try. Most of the people think that I am good at doing crazy things that people like. This is what we created today. Nice mobile phone, cheap at just Rs 2000. Its very cheap to use. Specially for the Indian market. I think we are good at creating products where there is gap in the market. And the end result of doing that is that hopefully you can pay the bills. And from the profit you make from that, you can help tackling some social problems in the world and make some difference.

NDTV: Some people even call you the dream boss.

Branson: Well I would like to be. I guess now its more difficult when you have 60,000 to 70,000 people working across the world. But we like to make it sure that people who work with us have fun and are proud of what they do. These are little things to do to make it good in a company.

NDTV: Your last word or a piece of advice to business tycoons when they want to win over other businesses.

Branson: I have got a motto that nothing done till nothing gained. It’s a good motto in life. I think people can be too conscious. And the worst that could happen if you try something is that you could fall flat on face. Another book I wrote was Let’s do it. So I would suggest that’s what they should do.