Business Today 26 October 2025

The Tata–Mistry saga refuses to fade. Nine years after the dramatic boardroom coup that ousted Cyrus Mistry, tensions between the Tata Group and its oldest partner, the Shapoorji Pallonji (SP) family, continue to simmer—this time over something as basic, yet consequential, as value and control. This is the focus of the cover story by Krishna Gopalan in this issue. Burdened by debt and eager to unlock capital, the SP Group has revived its call for the listing of the holding company Tata Sons. Their argument is simple: if the Tatas won’t buy their 18.4% stake at a fair price, then let the market decide. After all, this is no private-equity exit; the Mistrys have been part of the Tata story for nearly a century. However, Tata Trusts is not at…

FOREIGN BOOST CONTRIBUTIONS FROM INDIAN MIGRANTS AND NRIs BOOSTED THE ECONOMY, WITH SECONDARY INCOME RISING 64% IN THE LAST FIVE YEARS SOURCE CMIE ECONOMIC OUTLOOK HELPING HAND INDIAN WORKERS’ REMITTANCES SURGED FROM $29 BILLION IN FY12 TO $80 BILLION IN FY25, OUTPACING FLUCTUATING NRI DEPOSIT WITHDRAWALS AMERICAN TRYST WITH 27.7%, THE US DISPLACED UAE AND BECAME THE LARG-EST SOURCE FOR INDIA’S INWARD REMITTANCES TOP RECIPIENTS AMONG STATES, MAHARASHTRA RECEIVED THE HIGHEST REMITTANCES IN FY24, FOLLOWED BY KERALA AND TAMIL NADU $287 BILLION THE DEFICIT IN INDIA’S GOODS TRADE IN FY25, WHICH IS AN INCREASE OF 82% IN THE LAST FIVE YEARS $48 BILLION THE OUTFLOW FROM THE COUNTRY AS PRIMARY INCOME IN FY25, WITH INDIA PAYING MORE INTEREST, DIVIDENDS, AND PROFITS TO FOREIGN INVESTORS THAN IT RECEIVED 21% INDIA’S SECONDARY INCOME, AT…

TIMETABLED FREIGHT ON OCTOBER 1, Indian Railways launched its first assured time container service between Delhi and Kolkata. In a significant shift, timetabled services are planned to be scaled up on several routes to ensure reliable delivery of goods that generally move by road. Commodity specific cargo services—grains, cement, automobile and export/import—are also being transitioned to timetabled movement to boost logistics services. It was a long-pending demand from operators to provide assured time services to compete with road services. AI FUNDING BUBBLE? WITH OPENAI OVERTAKING Elon Musk’s SpaceX to become the world’s most valuable privately held start-up at over $500 billion, concerns of an AI funding bubble are mounting. Globally, AI start-ups raised $73 billion in 2025, accounting for nearly 58% of all venture funding, research platform PitchBook data shows.…

Over 75% business of the $17-billion Syngenta comes from crop protection. The company was formed in 2000 with the merger of Novartis and AstraZeneca’s agrichemical businesses. Steven Hawkins, President, Syngenta Crop Protection, talks with Business Today’s Krishna Gopalan about why he is optimistic about India, the effects of geopolitical turmoil, and the overall outlook for agriculture. Edited excerpts: Q: Every multinational corporation, without exception, says India is a critical market. What makes the country unique for your business? A: India, for sure, is a critical growth market. We must understand a few things here. The development and sophistication of agricultural production, or productivity as you call it, must catch up. That is still quite low in India compared to the global average. “India is a fragmented market, and I believe…

A little after 6 p.m. on October 10, as Mumbai wound down for the weekend, a rare communiqué arrived in newsroom inboxes. Shapoorji Pallonji Mistry, the reticent head of one of India’s oldest business houses, had broken his silence. The two-page statement, signed personally by Mistry, was calm in tone but seismic in implication. It called once again for “transparency and good governance through the public listing of Tata Sons”—the holding company at the centre of India’s largest conglomerate. For the 160-year-old Shapoorji Pallonji (SP) Group, the second-largest shareholder in Tata Sons with an 18.4% stake, the demand was not new. But the timing was telling. Earlier that same day, the board of Tata Trusts, which owns about two-thirds of Tata Sons, had met at the iconic Taj Mahal Palace…

NOEL TATA Chairman, Tata Trusts Half-brother of Ratan Tata; also Chair of Trent and Tata International ► He has been associated with the Tata group for over four decades. In addition to his position on Tata Trusts, he is chairman of Trent, Tata International, Voltas, and Tata Investment Corporation. He is also Vice Chairman of Tata Steel and Titan. His notable success has been Trent in fashion, and Star in the supermarket format. VENU SRINIVASAN (Vice Chairman, Tata Trusts) Chairman Emeritus, TVS Motor Co.; seen as close to Ratan Tata ► A member of Tata Trusts and its nominee on the board of Tata Sons, the investment holding company and promoter of the Tata group. He is also Chairman Emeritus of TVS Motor, a leading manufacturer of two-wheelers. He joined…