The home team

The Economist, November 15, 2008 - The home team Indigenous carmakers are working their way up RATAN TATA may be the patriarch of Indian business and head of the sprawling conglomerate that bears the family name, but few doubt that his first love is Tata Motors. The company dominates the Indian commercial-vehicle market, produced India's first entirely indigenous modern car and has captured the world's imagination with the Nano—the one-lakh (100,000 rupee, $2,500) "people's car". Sitting in his office on the top floor of the building in central Mumbai from which he controls his empire, Mr Tata recalls what brought him into the car business a decade ago. In the era known as the "Licence Raj", from independence in 1947 until 1990, when India attempted to operate a planned economy, the Indian car industry was suffocated by red... [read full story]