On my path to learn more about India, I think it would be useful to know the most popular “entities” in India. Entities include things like people, places, and organizations.
I have already documented the important places in India in my previous post on India’s Geo-Social Landscape. So I think that next, I should start chipping away at the important organizations in India.
I want to start with the most popular business brands. The top brands have set up shop in everyone’s mind, so I want to know the same stuff that is already in the minds of every Indian. But where do I find this information?
After a few minutes of reflection, I thought of trying to use a stock market index. Something similar to the S&P 500, but for Indian companies.
I searched for “popular indexes in the Indian stock market,” and everything in the results is pointing to the SENSEX index of the BSE (Bombay Stock Exchange).
I think I’m on to something…
SENSEX
I researched a little about it. I found that the SENSEX (also known as the S&P Sensitive Index) is a market index of 30 well-established and financially healthy companies listed on the BSE. The 30 companies are some of the largest and most actively traded stocks on the BSE, and they represent the various industrial sectors of the Indian economy. Basically, it contains the top blue chips from main industries.
So I decided to pitch my tent there…
So here we go. The table below lists the 30 current members of the SENSEX grouped by sector. It also contains links to Wikipedia for every company and pictures of their logos.
| Sector | Companies | Logos |
| Automobile | Bajaj Auto Mahindra & Mahindra Maruti Suzuki Tata Motors |  |
| Banking | Private Axis Bank HDFC Bank ICICI Bank IndusInd Bank Kotak Mahindra Bank |  |
| Public State Bank of India |  | |
| Cement | UltraTech Cement |  |
| Cigarettes & FMCG | ITC Limited |  |
| Conglomerate | Bajaj Group Mahinda Group Reliance Industries Limited Tata Group |  |
| Diamond & Jewelry | Titan Company |  |
| Engineering & Construction | Larsen & Toubro |  |
| Finance | Housing – HDFC Investment – Bajaj Finserv NBFC (Non-Banking Financial Company) – Bajaj Finance |   |
| FMCG (Fast-Moving Consumer Goods) | Hindustan Unilever Limited Nestlé India |   |
| IT Services & Consulting | HCL Technologies Infosys Tata Consultancy Services Tech Mahindra |  |
| Oil Exploration and Production | Oil and Natural Gas Corporation |  |
| Paints | Asian Paints |  |
| Pharmaceuticals | Dr Reddy’s Laboratories Sun Pharma |   |
| Power Generation and Distribution | NTPC Power Grid Corporation of India |   |
| Telecommunications | Bharti Airtel Reliance Communications |   |