A year of Tatas without Cyrus Mistry

Before the spat, even some Tata group reporters were not very familiar with the holding and governance structures and the relative significance of each of the group entities

It was a Monday before Diwali and a fortnight before the announcement of demonetisation. The festive mood had set in and the news flow was thinning, when Ratan Tata decided to give a stimulus package to the pink press and its bored reporters. The press release of his sacking Cyrus Mistry as chairman of Tata Sons, the mothership of the country’s premier business group, which soon began flashing across TV screens was the beginning of at least three months’ saturation coverage of various companies, people, and sections of corporate law, which even a major national event like demonetisation could not