Second Tata firm to join hands with e-commerce portal.
With a focus on financial literacy for women, Millennium Mams is an 18-year-old initiative started by Kolkata-based industrialist B K Dhanuka.
Here's a look at how key Tata group companies fared under Cyrus Mistry's stewardship.
BMC authorities had sent notices to Tata Motors owner Ratan Tata and Parsi Gymkhana officer-bearer P C Cooper for putting up 14 unauthorised hoardings at the venue of the Nano launch. "They paid fine of Rs 112,986 today (Wednesday). The hoardings were removed immediately on Tuesday and a fine was imposed on both the parties under the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act, for not taking prior permission," said Deputy Municipal Commissioner (Zone I) Kishore Kshirsagar.
History will be created in Mumbai on Monday evening when Tata Motors launches the world's least expensive car, Nano -- a car that can redefine personal transportation in modern India.
At a time when the automobile industry is eyeing a market of 2 million cars by 2010, various automobile projects of industry majors, including Tata Motors and Mahindra and Mahindra, are running behind schedule.
An important political milestone during the year was the return of the Left Front to power with an over two-thirds majority.
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.
The Indian conglomerate is also studying investments in automobiles, software and hotel businesses, as well as biofuel in South American markets such as Brazil and Argentina.
For Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, the transition from a 'people's man' to corporate India's preferred chief minister was rapid, albeit with a cataclysmic effect.
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.
Eyeing potential business opportunity, Boeing Corporation is planning to approach the proposed Tata-Singapore Airlines.
The Mumbai headquartered company also overtook Japanese carmaker Honda to occupy the fourth spot in domestic passenger vehicle market.
In CDMA, we did not have legacy carriers, a second hand market of handsets, or even people understanding the technology
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.
Corporate leaders say economy going through troubled phase which is raising concern among global investors about investing in India.
No one is saying the steel industry is out of trouble. The financial crunch continues, and coupled with high cost of input, severely affected the first-quarter profits of steel companies. But most agree with Tata that the signals are encouraging.
Tata Motors has opted unconventional mediums like web search, viral marketing and innovative public relations-driven campaigns, where the news in brief is called 'Nano news' in some papers and television advertisement breaks are called 'Nano breaks.' There is also Nano merchandise like T-shirts and key chains. Unlike most car launches, it is not supported by a television campaign, leading to a big saving for the company.
After Tata group chief Ratan Tata criticised the spectrum allocation criteria announced by the government, GSM cellular operators on Tuesday took potshots at the guidelines, which they said was 'lenient' towards CDMA operators.
When the world's cheapest car was launched to global fanfare at the 2008 Delhi Auto Expo, a Singaporean journalist asked Ratan Tata whether he had considered the traffic implications once the Nano hit the roads.
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".
Nano's sales have been sliding. How does Tata Motors plan to bring the excitement back?
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.
