TATA Family Tree

Tata family is a family of Indian industrialists and philanthropists who founded iron and steel works, cotton mills and power plants that contributed to India’s industrial development. The Tatas are a Parsi family who originally came from state of Gujarat. The founder of the family’s fortunes was Jamsetji Tata.

Jamshedji Nusserwanji Tata, known as the father of Indian industry

Dorabji Tata, elder son of Jamshetji, Indian industrialist and philanthropist

Ratanji Tata, younger son of Jamshetji, philanthropist and pioneer of poverty studies

Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata, one of the founders of the Tata Group, married Suzanne Brière

J. R. D. Tata, Indian pioneer aviator and founder of Tata Airlines

Naval Tata, noted Tata group Industrualist, ILO member, recipient of Padma Bhushan

Ratan Tata, former chairman of the Tata Group

Simone Naval Tata, former chairperson of Trent

Noel Tata, chairperson of Trent.

Cyrus Pallonji Mistry

Cyrus Pallonji Mistry (born 4 July 1968) is a businessman who became chairman of Tata Group, an Indian business conglomerate, on 28 December 2012. He is the sixth chairman of the group and the second not to be named Tata, after Nowroji Saklatwala. The Economist has described him as "the most important industrialist" in both India and Britain.

He is the youngest son of Indian construction magnate Pallonji Mistry.Mistry studied at the Cathedral & John Connon School in Mumbai. He graduated from the Imperial College, London with a BEng in civil engineering and holds a Master of Science in management from the London Business School. He is a fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers.

Cyrus Mistry is the youngest son of Pallonji Mistry, a construction tycoon; and Patsy Perin Dubash. Mistry's grandfather first bought shares in Tata Sons in the 1930s, a stake that, as of November 2011, stood at 18.5 percent, which is in the hands of Mistry's father, the largest single shareholder in a firm mostly controlled by trusts. He has an elder brother Shapoor Mistry who is married to Behroze Sethna, the daughter of lawyer Rusi Sethna. Cyrus has two sisters: Laila and Aloo. His sister, Aloo, is married to Noel Tata, the half-brother of Ratan Tata. Laila is married to Rustom Jehangir.

Mistry is married to Rohiqa Chagla, the daughter of lawyer Iqbal Chagla and the granddaughter of renowned jurist M.C. Chagla. Together, Mistry and his wife have two sons.

Mistry is an Irish citizen, and a permanent resident of India. According to a news report in an Irish newspaper, The Independent, Mistry views himself as a global citizen and thinks the color of his passport is unimportant.

Mistry has been managing director of Shapoorji Pallonji & Company, which is part of the Shapoorji Pallonji Group. He joined the board of Tata Sons on 1 September 2006, a year after his father retired from it. He served as a Director of Tata Elxsi Limited, from 24 September 1990 to 26 October 2009 and was a Director of Tata Power Co. Ltd until 18 September 2006.[citation needed]

In 2012, Mistry was appointed as the chairman of Tata Sons. In addition, he is also chairman of all major Tata companies including Tata Industries, Tata Steel, Tata Motors, Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Power, Tata Teleservices, Indian Hotels, Tata Global Beverages and Tata Chemicals.

Ratan Tata

Ratan Naval Tata (born 28 December 1937) is an Indian businessman, investor, philanthropist and chairman Emeritus of Tata Sons. He was the chairman of Tata Group, a Mumbai-based conglomerate from 1991–2012. He stepped down as the chairman of Tata Group, on 28 December 2012 but continues as the chairman of the Group's charitable trusts.

Ratan Tata is the son of Naval Tata, who had been adopted from the family of a distant relative by Navajbai Tata after the death of her husband, Ratanji Tata. Ratan Tata's parents Naval and Sonoo separated in the mid-1940s when Ratan was ten and his younger brother, Jimmy, was seven years old. Both he and his brother were raised by their grandmother Navajbai Tata. Ratan also has a step brother Noel Tata from Naval Tata's second marriage to Simone Tata.

Ratan began his schooling in Mumbai at the Campion School and finished his secondary education at the Cathedral and John Connon School. He completed his B.S. in architecture with structural engineering from Cornell University in 1962, and the Advanced Management Program from Harvard Business School in 1975. Tata is a member of the Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity.

Tata began his career in the Tata group in 1961. He initially started on the shop floor of Tata Steel, shovelling limestone and handling the blast furnace. In 1991, J. R. D. Tata stepped down as Chairman of Tata Sons, naming Ratan as his successor.

Under his stewardship, Tata Tea acquired Tetley, Tata Motors acquired Jaguar Land Rover and Tata Steel acquired Corus, which have turned Tata from a largely India-centric company into a global business, with 65% revenues coming from abroad. He was instrumental in the development of Tata Nano, largely dubbed as the world's cheapest passenger car.

Ratan Tata retired from all executive responsibility in the Tata group on 28 December 2012, his 75th birthday, and he was succeeded by Cyrus Mistry, the 44-year-old son of Pallonji Mistry and managing director of Shapoorji Pallonji Group.

Ratan Tata has retired but he is still seen working. Recently, he invested his personal savings in Snapdeal- one of India's leading e-commerce website. Mr Tata is working closely with Jaguar Land Rover and some of the new models launched by the British marquee have several inputs from Mr Tata. In April 2015, it was reported that Tata had acquired a stake in Chinese smartphone startup Xiaomi, with specific terms undisclosed.

He is currently the chairman Emeritus of Tata Sons. He continues to serve as the chairman of the main two Tata trusts Sir Dorabji Tata Trust and Sir Ratan Tata Trust and their allied Trusts, which together hold 66% of shares in the group holding company Tata Sons.

Ratan Tata has served in various capacities in organisations in India and abroad. He is a member of the Prime Minister's Council on Trade and Industry and the National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council. He is on the jury panel of Pritzker Architecture Prize – considered to be one of the world's premier architecture prizes.

Ratan Tata is a director on the boards of Alcoa Inc., Mondelez International and Board of Governors of the East-West Center. He is also a member of the Board of Trustees of University of Southern California, Harvard Business School Board of Dean's Advisors, X Prize and Cornell University.

Ratan Tata is also a member of the Harvard Business School India Advisory Board (IAB) since 2006, a member of the Board of Directors of Pepperdine University, and previously a member of the Harvard Business School Asia-Pacific Advisory Board (APAB) 2001-2006.

Ratan Tata received the Padma Vibhushan in 2008 and Padma Bhushan in 2000, the second and third highest civilian honours awarded by the Government of India.

Nowroji Saklatwala

Sir Nowroji Saklatwala, KBE, CIE (1875 - 1938) was the third chairman of the Tata group from 1932 till his sudden death in 1938 due to a heart attack.

He was son of Bapuji Saklatwala and Virbaiji Saklatwala (néé Tata). His mother Virbaiji was the sister of Jamshetji Nusserwani Tata. He completed his studies at St. Xavier College, joined the Tata group in 1899 as a clerk in Svadeshi Mills in Mumbai. Within twenty years, he rose to be the head of the firm. He was the only non-Tata to make it to the top, and worked closely with Dorabji Tata. When Dorabji died in 1932, he became the Chairman of the Tata Group and had the task of consolidating the company during the Depression years.

Closely connected with Indian cricket, Saklatwala played for the Parsees team during 1904-05, but stopped playing actively due to business pre-occupations. As a cricket player he represented the Parsees against the Europeans in 1904.

He was the first Chairman of the Cricket Club of India after its inception in 1933 till his death and was instrumental in the development of Brabourne Stadium, for which he also donated a large sum of money.

Saklatwala was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire (CIE) in the 1923 New Year Honours list, knighted in the 1933 Birthday Honours list and further knighted as a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) in the 1937 Coronation Honours list.

Dorabji Tata

Dorabji Tata (27 August 1859 – 3 June 1932) was an Indian businessman, and a key figure in the history and development of the Tata Group. Dorabji Tata was knighted in 1910 for his contributions to industry in British India.

Dorab, or Sir Dorabji, as he was later known, was the elder son of Hirabai and Parsi Zoroastrian Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata. Through an aunt, Jerbai Tata, who married a Bombay merchant, Dorabji Saklatvala, he was cousin of Shapurji Saklatvala who later became a Communist Member of the British Parliament.

Tata received his primary education at the Proprietary High School in Bombay (now Mumbai) before travelling to England in 1875, where he was privately tutored. He entered Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge in 1877, where he remained for two years before returning to Bombay in 1879. He continued his studies at St. Xavier's College, Bombay, where he obtained a degree in 1882.

Upon graduating, Dorab worked for two years as a journalist at the Bombay Gazette. In 1884, he joined the cotton business division of his father's firm. He was first sent to Pondicherry, then a French colony, to determine whether a cotton mill might be profitable there. Thereafter, he was sent to Nagpur, to learn the cotton trade at the Empress Mills which had been founded by his father in 1877.

Dorabji's father Jamshetji had visited Mysore State in south India on business, and had met Dr. Hormusji Bhabha, a Parsi gentleman and the first Indian Inspector-General of Education of that state. While visiting the Bhabha home, he had met and approved of young Meherbai, Bhabha's only daughter. Returning to Bombay, Jamshetji sent Dorab to Mysore State, specifically to call on the Bhabha family. Dorab did so, and duly married Meherbai in 1897. The couple did not have children.

Meherbai's brother Jehangir Bhabha became a reputed lawyer. He was the father of the scientist Homi J. Bhabha and thus Dorabji was Homi Bhabha's uncle by marriage. This family connection explains why the Tata group lavishly funded Bhabha's research and the research institutions set up by Bhabha, including the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.

Dorabji was intimately involved in the fulfilment of his father's ideas of a modern iron and steel industry, and agreed to the necessity for hydroelectric electricity to power the industry. Dorab is credited with the establishment of the conglomerates Tata Steel in 1907 and Tata Power in 1911, which are the core of the present-day Tata Group. Dorabji is known to have personally accompanied the mineralogists who were searching for iron fields, and it is said that his presence encouraged the researchers to look in areas that would otherwise have been neglected. Under Dorabji's management, the business that had once included three cotton mills and the Taj Hotel Bombay grew to include India's largest private sector steel company, three electric companies and one of India's leading insurance companies. Founder of New India Assurance Co Ltd. in 1919, the largest General Insurance company in India. Dorabji Tata was knighted in January 1910 by Edward VII, becoming Sir Dorabji Tata.

Dorabji was extremely fond of sports, and was a pioneer in the Indian Olympic movement. As President of the Indian Olympic Association, he financed the Indian contingent to the Paris Olympics in 1924. The Tata family, like most of India's big businessmen, were Indian nationalists but did not trust the Congress because it seemed too aggressively hostile to the Raj, too socialist, and too supportive of trade unions.

Meherbai Tata died of leukaemia in 1931 at the age of 52. Shortly after her death, Dorabji established the Lady Tata Memorial Trust to advance the study into diseases of the blood.

On 11 March 1932, one year after Meherbai's death and shortly before his own, he established a trust fund which was to be used "without any distinction of place, nationality or creed," for the advancement of learning and research, disaster relief, and other philanthropic purposes. That trust is today known as the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust. Dorabji additionally provided the seed money to fund the setting up of India's premier scientific and engineering research institution, the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

Dorabji died in Bad Kissingen, Germany on 3 June 1932, at the age of 73. He is buried alongside his wife Meherbai in Brookwood Cemetery, Woking, England. They had no children.

Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata

Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata (R.D. Tata, 1856–1926) was a Parsi businessman who played a pivotal role in the growth of the Tata Group in India. He was the first cousin of Jamsetji Tata, a pioneering industrialist of India and the Founder of Tata Sons. He was one of the partners in Tata Sons founded by Jamshedji Tata. Ratanji is the father of JRD Tata.

Ratanji was born in Navsari in Gujarat in 1856. He studied at the Elphinstone College in Bombay. After graduating, he took up a course in agriculture in Madras. He then joined his family trade in the Far East.

Ratanji was married at an early age to a Parsee girl from the Banaji family. However, she died childless not too long after the marriage and was left hopeless. Ratanji was in his forties when he remarried a French woman, Suzanne Brière, in 1902. This was considered revolutionary in his times and was not welcomed by everyone in the Parsi community. They had five children Rodabeh, Jehangir/JRD Tata, Jimmy, Sylla and Dorab.

Under the name Tata & Co, Ratanji ran an opium importing business in China, which was legal at the time. In 1887, he and other merchants such as David Sassoon presented a petition on behalf of the opium traders to complain about a Hong Kong Legislative Council bill that threatened to affect their trade.

Tata Steel was conceived and commissioned by Jamshedji Tata. However, Jamshedji died before the completion of the project. Ratanji played an important role in the completion of the Tata Steel Project along with Jameshdji's son Dorab and thus Tata Steel was established in Jamshedpur.

The Tatas supplied steel to the British during the First World War. However, after the war Tata Steel went through a difficult period in the 1920s as steel was dumped into India from Britain and Belgium. Ratanji, along with other directors successfully sought protection for the Indian steel industry from the colonial government of the day and steadied the operations of Tata Steel.

Ratanji died in 1926 at the age of 70. JRD Tata succeeded him as one of the permanent directors of Tata Sons. On his death Jamnalal Bajaj wrote: "If all businessmen in India would acquire half his love for things Indian, there is no reason why all our enterprises should not flourish."

J. R. D. Tata

Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata (29 July 1904 – 29 November 1993) was Frrench-born Indian aviator and business tycoon. He was the Chairman of Tata Sons. He became India's first licensed pilot in 1929. In 1983, he was awarded the French Legion of Honour and, in 1992, India's highest civilian award, theBharat Ratna.

J. R. D. Tata was born on 29 July 1904 in Paris, France, the second child of Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata and his French wife, Suzanne "Sooni" Brière. His father was a first cousin of Jamsetji Tata, a pioneer industrialist in India. He had one elder sister Sylla, a younger sister Rodabeh and two younger brothers Darab and Jimmy Tata. As his mother was French, he spent much of his childhood in France and as a result, French was his first language. He attended the Janson De Sailly School in Paris. One of the teachers at that school used to call him L'Egyptian for some strange reason. Tata also served in the French Foreign Legion for one year in the regiment Le Saphis during the Second World War. After he left the service the whole regiment perished on an expedition in Morocco.

He attended the Cathedral and John Connon School, Bombay. Tata was educated in London, Japan, France and India. When his father joined theTata company he moved the whole family to London. During this time, J.R.D's mother died at an early age of 43 while his father was in India and his family was in France. After his mother's death, Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata decided to move his family to India and sent J.R.D to England for higher studies in October 1923. He was enrolled in a Grammar school, and was interested in studying Engineering at Cambridge. Just as the Grammar course was ending and he was hoping to enter Cambridge, a law was passed in France to draft into the army, for two years, all French boys at the age of 20. As a citizen of France J.R.D had to enlist in the army for at least 1 year. In between the Grammar school and his time in the army, he spent a brief spell at home in Bombay. After joining the French Army he was posted into the regiment called Le Saphis (The Sepoys). Soon the Colonel of the regiment found that there was a member of his Squadron who could not only read and write French and English, but could type as well; so he assigned him as a secretary in his office. Tata was once again transferred to the more luxurious office of a colonel. After a 12-month period of conscription in the French Army he wanted to proceed to Cambridge for further education, but his father decided to bring him back to India and he joined the Tata Company. In 1929, JRD renounced his French citizenship and became an Indian citizen, and started working at Tata. In 1930 JRD married Thelma Vicaji, the daughter of 'Prince' Vicaji, a colourful lawyer whom he hired to defend him on a charge of driving his Bugatti too fast along Bombay's main promenade, Marine Drive. Previously he had been engaged to Dinbai Mehta, the future mother of The Economist editor Shapur Kharegat.

J. R. D. Tata was inspired early by pioneer Louis Blériot, and took to flying. On 10 February 1929, Tata obtained the first pilot licence issued in India. He later came to be known as the father of Indian civil aviation. He founded India's first commercial airline, Tata Airlines in 1932, which became Air India in 1946, now India's national airline.He and Nevill Vintcent worked together in building Tata Airlines. They were also friends.

He joined Tata & Sons as an unpaid apprentice in 1925. In 1938, at the age of 34, JRD was elected Chairman of Tata & Sons making him the head of the largest industrial group in India. He took over as Chairman of Tata Sons from his second cousin Nowroji Saklatwala. For decades, he directed the huge Tata Group of companies, with major interests in steel, engineering, power, chemicals and hospitality. He was famous for succeeding in business while maintaining high ethicalstandards – refusing to bribe politicians or use the black market.

Under his chairmanship, the assets of the Tata Group grew from US$100 million to over US$5 billion. He started with 14 enterprises under his leadership and half a century later on 26 July 1988, when he left, Tata & Sons was a conglomerate of 95 enterprises which they either started or in which they had controlling interest.

He was the trustee of the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust from its inception in 1932 for over half a century. Under his guidance, this Trust established Asia's first cancer hospital, the Tata Memorial Center for Cancer, Research and Treatment, in Bombay in 1941. It also founded the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS, 1936), the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR, 1945), and the National Center for Performing Arts.

In 1945, he founded Tata Motors. In 1948, JRD Tata launched Air India International as India's first international airline. In 1953, the Indian Government appointed JRD Tata as Chairman of Air India and a director on the Board of Indian Airlines – a position he retained for 25 years. For his crowning achievements in aviation, he was bestowed with the title of Honorary Air Commodore of India.

JRD Tata cared greatly for his workers. In 1956, he initiated a program of closer 'employee association with management' to give workers a stronger voice in the affairs of the company. He firmly believed in employee welfare and espoused the principles of an eight-hour working day, free medical aid, workers' provident scheme, and workmen's accident compensation schemes,which were later, adopted as statutory requirements in India.

Tata was also controversially supportive of the declaration of emergency powers by Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, in 1975. He is quoted to have told a reporter of the New York Times, "things had gone too far. You can’t imagine what we’ve been through here—strikes, boycotts, demonstrations. Why, there were days I couldn’t walk out of my office into the street. The parliamentary system is not suited to our needs."

He was also a founding member of the first Governing Body of NCAER, the National Council of Applied Economic Research in New Delhi,India's first independent economic policy institute established in 1956. In 1968, he founded Tata Consultancy Services as Tata Computer Centre. In 1979, Tata Steel instituted a new practice: a worker being deemed to be "at work" from the moment he leaves home for work till he returns home from work. This made the company financially liable to the worker for any mishap on the way to and from work. In 1987, he founded Titan Industries. Jamshedpur was also selected as a UN Global Compact City because of the quality of life, conditions of sanitation, roads and welfare that were offered by Tata Steel.

JRD Tata received a number of awards. He was conferred the honorary rank of Group Captain by the Indian Air Force in 1948, was promoted to the Air Commodore rank (equivalent to Brigadier in army), and was further promoted on 1 April 1974 to the Air Vice Marshal rank. Several international awards for aviation were given to him – The Tony Jannus Award in March 1979, the Gold Air Medal of the Federation Aeronautique Internationale in 1985, the Edward Warner Award of the International Civil Aviation Organisation, Canada in 1986 and the Daniel Guggenheim Award in 1988.He received the Padma Vibhushan in 1955 . The French Legion of Honour was bestowed on him in 1983. In 1992, because of his selfless humanitarian endeavours, JRD Tata was awarded India's highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna. In the same year, JRD Tata was also bestowed with the United Nations Population Award for his crusading endeavours towards initiating and successfully implementing the family planning movement in India, much before it became an official government policy. In his memory Government of Maharashtra termed its first double decker bridge as Bharatratne JRD Tata Over-bridge at Kasarwadi Phata, Pune.

JRD Tata died in Geneva, Switzerland on 29 November 1993 at the age of 89 of a kidney Infection. On his death, the Indian Parliament was adjourned in his memory – an honour not usually given to persons who are not members of parliament. He is buried at the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

Jamsetji Tata

Jamsetji Tata

Jamsedhji Nusserwanji Tata was an Indian pioneer industrialist, who founded the Tata Group, India's biggest conglomerate company. He was born to a Parsi Zoroastrian family in Navsari then part of the princely state of Baroda.

He founded what would later become the Tata Group of companies. Jamsetji Tata is regarded as the legendary "Father of Indian Industry".

When you have to give the lead in action, in ideas – a lead which does not fit in with the very climate of opinion – that is true courage, physical or mental or spiritual, call it what you like, and it is this type of courage and vision that Jamsetji Tata showed. It is right that we should honour his memory and remember him as one of the big founders of modern India."— Jawaharlal Nehru.

Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata was born to Nusserwanji and Jeevanbai Tata on 3 March 1839 in Navsari, a small town in South Gujarat. Tata was the first businessman in a family of Parsi Zoroastrian priests. It was only natural that Nusserwanji, would, as usual join the family priesthood, but the enterprising youngster broke the tradition to become the first member of the family to try his hand at business. He started trading in Mumbai.

Jamsetji joined his father in Mumbai at the age of 14 and enrolled at the Elphinstone College completing his education as a 'Green Scholar' (equivalent of today's graduate). He was married to Hirabai Daboo while he was still a student. He graduated from college in 1858 and joined his father's trading firm. It was a turbulent time to step into business as the Indian Rebellion of 1857 had just been suppressed by the British government.

Jamsetji's knowledge expansion happened through successive trips abroad, mainly to England, America, continental Europe, and other places that convinced him that there was tremendous scope for Indian companies to forge through and make a foray in the British dominated textile industry.

Jamsetji worked in his father's company until he was 29. He founded a trading company in 1868 with Rs. 21,000 capital. He bought a bankrupt oil mill at Chinchpokli in 1869 and converted it to a cotton mill, which he renamed Alexandra Mill. He sold the mill two years later for a profit. He set up another cotton mill at Nagpur in 1874, which he christened Empress Mill when Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India on 1 January 1877.

He devoted his life to four goals: setting up an iron and steel company, a world-class learning institution, a unique hotel and a hydro-electric plant. Only the hotel became a reality during his lifetime, with the inauguration of the Taj Mahal Hotel at Colaba waterfront inBombay (now Mumbai) on 3 December 1903 at the cost of 42 million rupees (about 11 billion rupees at 2010 prices). At that time it was the only hotel in India to have electricity.

His successors' work led to the three remaining ideas being achieved:

· Tata Steel (formerly TISCO – Tata Iron and Steel Company Limited) is Asia's first and India's largest steel company. It became world's fifth largest steel company, after it acquired Corus Group producing 28 million tonnes of steel annually.

· Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, the pre-eminent Indian institution for research and education in Science and Engineering.

· Tata Hydroelectric Power Supply Company, renamed Tata Power Company Limited, currently India's largest private electricity company with an installed generation capacity of over 8000MW

Jamsetji Tata married Hirabai Daboo. Their sons, Dorabji Tata and Ratanji Tata, succeeded Jamsetji as the chairman of the Tata group.

Tata's sister Jerbai, through marriage to a Bombay merchant, became mother of Shapurji Saklatvala, who Jamsetji employed to successfully prospect for coal and iron ore in Bihar and Orissa. Saklatvala later settled in England, initially to manage Tata's Manchester office, and later became a Communist Member of the British Parliament.

While on a business trip in Germany in 1900, Tata became seriously ill. He died in Bad Nauheim on 19 May 1904, and was buried in the Parsi burial ground in Brookwood Cemetery, Woking, England.

Tata's iron and steel plant was set up at Sakchi village in jharkhand. The village grew into a town and the railway station there was named Tatanagar. Now it is a bustling metropolis known as Jamshedpur in Jharkhand, named in honour of the Jamshetji.

The old village of Sakchi (now urbanised) still exists within the city of Jamshedpur, as its suburb.

"Freedom without the strength to support it and, if need be, defend it, would be a cruel delusion. And the strength to defend freedom can itself only come from widespread industrialisation and the infusion of modern science and technology into the country's economic life."

"In a free enterprise the community is not just another stakeholder in the business but in fact the very existence of it."

"There is one kind of charity common enough among us... It is that patchwork philanthropy which clothes the ragged, feeds the poor, and heals the sick. I am far from decrying the noble spirit which seeks to help a poor or suffering fellow being... [However] what advances a nation or a community is not so much to prop up its weakest and most helpless members, but to lift up the best and the most gifted, so as to make them of the greatest service to the country."

"Be sure to lay wide streets planted with shady trees, every other of a quick-growing variety. Be sure that there is plenty of space for lawns and gardens. Reserve large areas for football, hockey and parks. Earmark areas for Hindu temples, Mohammedan mosques and Christian churches." — Jamsetji Tata in a letter to son Dorab about his vision for the township that would eventually become Jamshedpur.

"He was not a man who cared to bask in the public eye. He disliked public gatherings, he did not care for making speeches, his sturdy strength of character prevented from fawning on any man, however great, for he himself was great in his own way, greater than most people realised. He sought no honour and he claimed no privilege, but the advancement of India and her myriad peoples was with him an abiding passion." — The Times of India on Jamsetji Tata's death

"While many others worked on loosening the chains of slavery and hastening the march towards the dawn of freedom, Jamsetji dreamed of and worked for life as it was to be fashioned after liberation. Most of the others worked for freedom from a bad life of servitude; Jamsetji worked for freedom for fashioning a better life of economic independence." — Dr Zakir Hussain, the former president of India

"That he was a man of destiny is clear. It would seem, indeed, as if the hour of his birth, his life, his talents, his actions, the chain of events which he set in motion or influenced, and the services he rendered to his country and to his people, were all pre-destined as part of the greater destiny of India." — J. R. D. Tata

"No Indian of the present generation had done more for the commerce and industry of India." — Lord Curzon, the viceroy of India, following Jamsetji Tata's demise.

Biography of Aditya Vikram Kumar Mangalam Birla

Kumar Mangalam Birla is an Indian industrialist and the Chairman of the Aditya Birla Group, one of the largest conglomerate corporations in India. The group is India's third largest business group. He is also the Chancellor of the Birla Institute of Technology & Science.

Kumar Mangalam Birla is a fourth generation member of the Birla family and the son of Aditya Vikram Birla and Rajashree Birla from the state of Rajasthan. He spent his childhood in Kolkata and Mumbai. He has BCom degree from University of Bombay & Chartered Accountant from Institute of Chartered Accountants of India & an MBA from London Business School, London, where he is also an Honorary Fellow.

Kumar Mangalam Birla took over as Chairman of the Aditya Birla Group in 1995, aged 28, after sudden death of his father,Aditya Birla, after whom the group is named. Many doubts were raised about his ability to lead the group with varied interests in textile and garments, cement, aluminum, fertilizers etc. However, under his leadership the Aditya Birla Grouphas expanded into new sectors including telecom, software and BPO while consolidating its position in existing businesses.

When Kumar Mangalam Birla took over the reins of the group in 1995, the turnover was only $US2 billion and overseas operations accounted for a very small part of the overall business with Egypt, Thailand and Indonesia being major centres. Under his leadership the group's turnover increased to $40 billion and it has expanded operations to more than 40 countries. 60 percent of the group's revenues now come from abroad, and employ more than 130,000 people.

Birla is married to Neeraja Birla. They have three children.

Biography of Aditya Vikram Birla

Aditya Vikram Birla (14 November 1943 – 1 October 1995), was an Indian industrialist. Born into one of the largest business families of India, Birla oversaw the diversification of his group into textiles, petrochemicals and telecommunications. He was one of the first Indian industrialists to expand abroad, setting up plants in South east Asia, the Philippines and Egypt, among other places. His unexpected death at the age of 52 left his young son in charge of his group of companies and also much doubt about whether it would survive him. These doubts however proved unfounded as his company has enjoyed success and so has his legacy of philanthropic activities.




Birla was born on 14 November 1943 in Kolkata to industrialist Basant Kumar and Sarala Birla. His grandfather Ghanshyam Das Birla was an associate of Mahatma Gandhiand had built his fortune on aluminium prospecting and as the manufacturer of the Ambassador car.




After college in Kolkata, he earned a degree in chemical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was married to Rajashri and had a daughter Vasavadatta and a son Kumar Mangalam, who now heads the Aditya Birla Group.




After returning to India in 1965, Birla struck out on his own in textiles. His Eastern Spinning Mills in Kolkata quickly became a success, putting the group's sinking rayon and textile business back on track. He was then placed in charge of the corporation's expansion into the oil sector. It was also the time that Indira Gandhi was consolidating her hold on theCongress Party with a series of populist moves-nationalizing banks and enacting controls on private investment. This greatly dampened his attempt to expand.




In 1969, Birla set up Indo-Thai Synthetics Company Ltd, the group's first overseas company. In 1973, he established P.T. Elegant Textiles to manufacture spun yarn. It marked the group's first venture in Indonesia. In 1974 Thai Rayon, the Group's Viscose Rayon Staple Fibre business was incorporated in Thailand. In 1975 The Indo Phil Group of companies, the first Indo-Filipino joint venture commenced production of spun yarn. In 1977 Pan Century Edible Oils was incorporated in Malaysia, going on to become the world's largest single-location palm oil refinery. In 1978 Thai Carbon Black, the Group's first carbon black company was incorporated in Thailand. In 1982 P.T Indo Bharat Rayon was established, the first producer of Viscose Staple Fibre in Indonesia. All these ventures not only put the Birla group on world map but also carved a niche for corporate India. Under his leadership the companies became the largest producer of Viscose staple fibre and refiner of palm oil.




Ghanshyam Das Birla died in 1983, bequeathing most of his companies to his grandson Aditya. With Aditya Vikram Birla as the chairman, the Birla group of companies saw success in the expansion of Hindustan Gas and in the conversion of Indo-Gulf Fertilisers and Chemicals Ltd, which was suffering from a liquidity crisis, into a blue-chip company.




In 1993, Birla was supposedly diagnosed with prostate cancer. His wife and son took on many of the responsibilities of the group (There were rumours that he suffered aslipped disc in 1995, but it wasn't true.) He was admitted to the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore for treatment for prostate cancer, and died on 1 October 1995.




Aditya Vikram Birla, the chairman of the $2.3-billion Birla Group and an advocate of expanding Indian economic activity abroad, died Sunday at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore of complications arising from pneumonia, according to his business associates.




Mr. Birla, who was 51 and widely regarded as one of India's most successful businessmen, was admitted to the hospital about four months ago for treatment of a slipped disc. His associates said he had contracted pneumonia in the hospital. Indian Prime Minister (then Finance Minister) Manmohan Singh called Mr. Birla "among the best and brightest citizens of India.




The Aditya Birla Group had instituted the Aditya Birla Scholarships in memory of Aditya Vikram Birla, to recognise and award fresh talent and potential future leaders from prestigious institutes in India. Every year more than 40 scholars from among six Indian Institutes of Management, seven Indian Institutes of Technology and Birla Institute of Technology and Science receive this scholarship. From the 2012–13-year onwards, this scholarship was extended to 4 law campuses as well.




Aditya Birla Memorial Hospital in Pimpri-Chinchwad has been named after him.

Biography of Adi Godrej-an Indian industrialist and businessman.

Adi Godrej

Adi Burjorji Godrej (born 3 April 1942), is an Indian industrialist and businessman, and head of the Godrej family, and chairman of the Godrej Group. As of 2015, he is the 405th richest person in the world with a net worth of US$4.0 billion. 

Adi Godrej received his undergraduate degree from HL college and his MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he was a member of the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity and a member of Tau Beta Pi.

After his return to India, he joined the family business. He modernized and systematized management structures and implemented process improvements. Adi Godrej took the Godrej Group to great height during the License Raj, and heads the group alongside his brother, Godrej Industries managing director and Godrej Agrovet chairman Nadir Godrej, and his cousin, Godrej & Boyce managing director and chairman Jamshyd Godrej.

Under Godrej's leadership, the group is also involved in philanthropic activities. Godrej is major supporter of the World Wildlife Fund in India, it has developed a green business campus in the Vikhroli township of Mumbai, which includes a 150-acre (0.61 km2) mangrove forest and a school for the children of company employees. He is the chairman of the Indian School of Business since April 2011. He was elected as the president of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) for the year 2012-13. In April 2013 Godrej was awarded the Entrepreneur of the Year Award at The Asian Awards. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan, India's third highest civilian award, in 2013. He was awarded the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in February 2013.

He is married to socialite and philanthropist, Parmeshwar Godrej and has three children. He lives in Juhu, Mumbai.