PIONEERING Indian industrialist Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata, long a symbol of the country's entrepreneurial spirit, died yesterday after nearly half a century at the helm of India's biggest business house. He was 89.
A Tata representative said JRD, as he was popularly known, died in a Geneva hospital where he had been admitted for a routine check-up.
A pall of gloom descended over India's business capital, Bombay, on news of his death. JRD built the Tata group into a conglomerate with turnover of more than 150 billion rupees (about HK$37.5 billion) and interests ranging from steel and cars to hotels,from the concern with turnover of two billion rupees that he took over when he was 34.
Indian president Shankar Dayal Sharma described Mr Tata, who will be buried in the family mausoleum in a Paris cemetery, as one of the builders of modern India.