"Tata is a microcosm of India," says R. Gopalakrishnan, senior director of Tata Engineering, the heart of India's biggest conglomerate, the Tata Group. "It's huge, sprawling, complex, full of heritage, and it needs to change. But it is difficult to change." The Tata family of rich, high-minded Parsee textile entrepreneurs based in Mum-bai started the industrialisation of India 100 years ago, notably with the building of the first steel mill arid a model new town for workers at Jamshedpur, 150 miles north of Calcutta. A generation later, it also founded Tata Air, which was later nationalised as Air India. Today, the group is bidding (with Singapore Airlines) to buy back Air India as it is partially privatised.
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