 "This Week in Explainers: Why Tata Trusts dispute is not good news for the country")
India’s Tata Group grabbed the limelight this week as its top honchos met Union ministers amid an escalating infighting. The sharp differences among the trustees of Tata Trusts are out in the open, as fears increase of its spillover effect on Tata Sons, the $180-billion group’s holding company.
United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer was in India this week. From football to trade, his two-day visit had it all. During the trip, he also held talks with PM Narendra Modi at Raj Bhavan in the country’s financial capital, Mumbai.
The deaths of more than a dozen children due to contaminated cough syrups in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan have raised questions about the implementation of drug safety checks. The spotlight has fallen on the pharma company that produced the adulterated syrups that led to the fatalities.
Here’s all this and more in our weekly wrap from India.
1. A dispute has erupted among trustees of the Tata Trusts over board appointments and governance issues. The board members are divided into two groups: one is supporting Noel Tata, Chairman of Tata Trusts, and the other camp is with Mehli Mistry, who has links to the extended Shapoorji Pallonji family, which owns nearly 18.37 per cent of Tata Sons.
Top leaders of the billion-dollar conglomerate, including Noel Tata and Tata Sons Chairman N Chandrasekaran, met Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman this week as the conflict escalated. The government reportedly told the Tata Group leaders to restore stability “by whatever means necessary”. The ministers have asked them to resolve the differences internally and discreetly, without public confrontation. We explain the rift in detail here.
Impact Shorts
More Shorts2. British PM Keir Starmer met PM Modi in Mumbai, with their talks ranging from trade to defence. In a joint press briefing after the discussions, the UK premier reaffirmed his commitment to boosting bilateral economic relations and expanding trade between the two nations. Modi said that defence cooperation between India and the UK has “advanced towards co-production and linking the defence industries of both countries.”
But before he got to business, Starmer’s first day in India was about football and films. He visited the Yash Raj Studios in Mumbai, where he was seen interacting with actor Rani Mukerji. He also attended a new English Premier League community programme, meeting aspiring young Indian footballers and coaches. Read our story to know about the highlights of Starmer’s India visit.
3. At least 18 children died in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan after being administered adulterated cough syrups. The ‘Coldrif’ cough syrup was given to many victims, some of whom are suspected to have developed renal failure.
Govindan Ranganathan, the owner of Sresan Pharmaceuticals, the firm that produced the “toxic” cough syrup, has been arrested. Raids conducted by Tamil Nadu’s Drugs Control Department at Sresan Pharmaceuticals in Kancheepuram on October 1 and 2 revealed several lapses and contamination of the medicine. Here’s our report.
4. PM Modi inaugurated Phase 1 of the Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMIA), which is inspired by the lotus. The design and digital features of the facility make it special.
Touted as India’s largest greenfield airport project, NMIA has been constructed to ease the congestion at Mumbai’s sole international airport, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA). Once all five phases of the airport are complete, it will be able to handle 90 million (nine crore) passengers annually (MPPA) and 3.25 million (32.5 lakh) metric tonnes of cargo. We take a look at NMIA’s features here.
5. A young college dropout from India is making waves in Silicon Valley’s startup circles. Dhravya Shah, a 20-year-old resident of Mumbai, has raised around $3 million (over Rs 23 crore) for his AI startup, Supermemory.
His venture has attracted the backing from Cloudflare’s Dane Knecht, Google AI chief Jeff Dean, and senior executives from DeepMind, OpenAI and Meta. He has also received the prestigious O-1 visa, a special American visa granted to individuals with “extraordinary abilities” in fields such as science, education, or the arts. But who is Dhravya Shah? Read our story to know more about the young entrepreneur.
6. October 9 marked the first death anniversary of business tycoon Ratan Tata. The former Tata Group chairman died at the age of 86 last year at Mumbai’s Breach Candy Hospital after being admitted due to age-related health issues.
When Tata is remembered, his close friendship with Shantanu Naidu also comes to mind. It was this millennial friend’s social media that provided glimpses of some of Tata’s private moments in his final years. What has Naidu been up to since the demise of his mentor? We take a look in our story.
This is all we have for you this week. If you like our explainers, you can bookmark this page.
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