High interest rates and lack of retail finance, coupled with rising input costs, threw plans out of gear for automakers and in November the industry saw the worst ever monthly vehicle sales with a decline of 17.98 per cent.
Who could be India's Obama who could unite the country and march the nation forward at a traumatic time? US business magazine Forbes feels it is industry captain Ratan Tata.
It is "ironic" that extra security measures, taken after being warned of a possible terror strike, were eased just before the terrorists assaulted the landmark Taj hotel, Tata group chief Ratan Tata said.
Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata on Thursday decried the government for not learning from the past and failing to put in place a crisis infrastructure that could be activated immediately after terror attacks in the city.
Sonia Gandhi, chief of India's key ruling alliance member Congress party, and Ratan Tata, who heads one of the country's top business houses, have been named in a list of 100 most influential in the world by Time magazine. The list also includes international figures like Tibetan leader Dalai Lama, US President George Bush as well as three presidential aspirants Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
For years, critics termed Tata's vehicle business as a millstone around the neck. But Group chairman Ratan Tata on Wednesday flattened their theory by taking the automobile venture to a new plane with the acquisition of British luxury brands Jaguar and Land Rover.
In an open letter to the people of West Bengal, Ratan Tata said the citizens should decide whether they wanted education and jobs in the industrial and hi-tech sectors or 'want to stay as they are.' The letter said, 'The people of West Bengal, particularly the younger citizens, will need to express their views and aspirations as to what they would like to see West Bengal become in the years ahead.'
Tata group Chairman Ratan Tata has written a letter to Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy indicating that Tata Advance Systems was keen to invest in the hub in the proposed Special Economic Zone in Adibhatla village, on the outskirts of the state capital.
Though most people expected Tata Motors to select either Andhra Pradesh or Karnataka for its Nano project, it was clear that Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi had done the impossible and coming from nowhere bagged the prestigious project.
Publishing companies in India are betting big on real life stories from the world of business to woo readers.
Despite what the Nano can do to the country's automobile market, its ability to transform Tata Motors' financials will be limited, says Shyamal Majumdar.
Tata's comments come a little over two weeks after JLR management and its workers agreed to a two-year pay freeze, subject to no compulsory layoffs for the next two years. This is also the first time the Tata chairman has made a direct public appeal to the UK government for credit support.
Is this the car you were waiting for? Will you buy the Nano?
Like many other low-unit value, fast-moving consumer goods, the Nano can be expected to alter the dynamics of its market like nothing before.
Among other things, Ratan Tata also said, 'All I can say at the moment is that the project is highly profitable. After all, I am not doing it for philanthropy.'
The company has already unveiled the European version -- Nano Europa -- at the Geneva Motor Show earlier this month -- which is likely to be fitted with a more powerful engine than the Indian version complying with Euro-V emission norms.
Kishore A Chaukar has been appointed as non-executive director and chairman on the board of TTML, with effect from March 24, the filing said.
The fact that chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya's personal popularity and charisma has declined is now helping Mamata. People who ridicule her as a 'woman full of antics' cannot ignore the fact that despite losing a series of elections, she has not quit. She believes you are not defeated unless you quit.
A Nano-like mission to provide good-quality, good-performance has the power to make an incredible positive impact on the Indian economy.
Vendors are ready to pull out of Singur and follow Tata Motors, said some of them, a day after Ratan Tata threatened to do so.
In keeping with the Trusts' objectives, the initiative was underpinned by an attempt to determine how over-nutrition was impacting citizens at a mass scale.
Ratan Tata, the 71-year-old Indian industrial patriarch whose Tata group now owns Jaguar and Land Rover, had personal experience of the importance of Jaguar's "heritage"during a visit to the British company in mid-July.
Is India's infrastructure fit to absorb a sudden surge in cars?
A proposal by the joint venture between Tata Motors and Fiat to set up a facility to manufacture the world's most famous small diesel engine -- the 1.3 multijet -- had been rejected by Japan's largest maker of minicars, Suzuki Motor Corporation.
Vision 2025 to focus on four clusters; aim is to join the global club of top 25 companies.
Ratan Tata, chairman of Tata Motors said that rising costs of fuel and raw materials are the biggest worry for the automobile industry. Tata also warned of tough times for the company as its market share slid in the last financial year.
TATA Group Chairman Ratan Tata and India-born steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal will be among seven international business leaders to attend the three-day International Investment Council to be hosted by President Thabo Mbeki this weekend in South Africa.
Noting that the company's Nano plant in Singur, West Bengal, was expected to come into operation in the last quarter of 2008, Ratan Tata, in a letter to shareholders in the annual report for 2007-08, said that manufacturing facilities would be expanded to meet domestic and global demand in the future. "New variants of the Nano are also currently under development to meet the new environmental and fuel price challenges".
Leading industrialists met with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (not in picture) in New Delhi on Thursday to discuss the general state of the Indian economy and other industry-related matters.
Ironically, one of his greatest challenges during the coming year will be writing himself out of the script.
As a step to protect its interest as a lender, SBI will look at the financial stability and corporate governance practices in companies where it has exposure.
India Inc on Tuesday sought tax cuts in the forthcoming Budget, even as it asked the government to move towards an effective goods and services tax rate of 15 per cent in the next few years.
An important political milestone during the year was the return of the Left Front to power with an over two-thirds majority.
If India cannot industrialise, it will never be prosperous
"I hope there's a bad 'M' and a good 'M'," Ratan Tata quipped shortly after Gujarat became a new home for his Nano small car project.
Five school students got together to create a car out of scraps for just Rs 11,000. They spent two years sifting through scrapyards to find appropriate material for the car.
The famous prancing horse is set to gallop across India. The world's foremost supercar maker, Ferrari, will kick off an arduous tour of the country - spanning more than 10 states and 13,000 kilometres - on Monday.
Industry sources said Tata Daewoo Commercial Vehicle and Telco Construction Equipment Company might be the first off the block.
Tata Steel on Thursday revived its mega Rs 2,500 crore (Rs 25 billion) project to produce titanium dioxide from ilmenite mined from beach sands of Tirunelveli and Tuticorin districts in south Tamil Nadu.
The industry minister said the small car project could not come up if 400 acre was returned as demanded by Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee. Nirupam Sen, who had discussed the Singur project with Tata in Kolkata on Thursday night, said that the state government wanted to work out a solution and was was open for talks to find out an acceptable solution.
