Noel Tata, the half-brother of Ratan Tata, has been appointed Chairman of Tata Trust, following a board meeting held in Mumbai today. Noel succeeds Ratan Tata who died at the age of 86 in a Mumbai hospital on Wednesday. 

Ratan Tata’s death marked the end of an era in Indian business, where a man reshaped the country’s industrial landscape and catapulted his family-owned conglomerate into a global powerhouse.

Noel Tata has been a key figure in Tata Group’s growth since he joined in the early 2000s. He was appointed Chairman of Tata Trust today following a meeting of the Sir Ratan Tata Trust and the Dorabji Tata Trust.

Noel Tata is the vice chairman of Tata Steel and watch company Titan. His mother Simone Tata, a French-Swiss Catholic who is Ratan Tata’s stepmother, is currently chairman of Trent, Voltas, Tata Investment Corporation, and Tata International. He was educated at Sussex University in the UK and having completed an International Executive Programme (IEP) at INSEAD.

READ | Who Is Noel Tata, Tata Trust’s New Chairman?

Noel Tata’s most prominent role before this new appointment was as Managing Director of Tata International Ltd, the group’s trading and distribution arm. Under his leadership from 2010 to 2021, the company grew from a turnover of $500 million to over $3 billion, proving his ability to drive growth in a highly competitive environment.

As Managing Director of Trent Ltd, Tata’s retail arm, he expanded its operations from a single store in 1998 to over 700 stores across various formats.

Tata Trust is the umbrella body that manages the functions of all 14 Tata trusts.

The ownership of Tata Sons is largely held by two key trusts – the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust, and the Sir Ratan Tata Trust, which together comprise over 50 per cent of the ownership.

Tata Trust at present has Venu Srinivasan, Vijay Singh, and Mehli Mistry as executive committee members.

Ratan Tata’s younger brother, Jimmy, is not involved in the family business and lives in a modest two-bedroom apartment in south Mumbai’s Colaba.

Born in a traditional Parsi family in 1937, Ratan Tata was brought up by his grandmother after his parents, Naval and Sooni Tata, divorced when he was 10.

Japanese organisation Nihon Hidankyo has been conferred with the Nobel Peace Prize 2024 for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons.

The organisation is a grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, also known as Hibakusha, which strives to “achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again”.

While announcing this year’s Peace Prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee honoured the atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki for cultivating hope for peace through “their costly experience”. “They help us to describe the indescribable, to think the unthinkable, and to somehow grasp the incomprehensible pain and suffering caused by nuclear weapons,” the committee stated on X.

The committee also highlighted that no nuclear weapon has been used in war in nearly 80 years. Acknowledging Nihon Hidankyo’s efforts towards the establishment of a nuclear taboo, the Nobel Committee also aid that the same is under pressure.

By drawing on personal stories, creating educational campaigns based on their own experience, and issuing urgent warnings against the spread and use of nuclear weapons, the organisation has helped consolidate opposition to nuclear weapons, said a Nobel Committee press release.

“The nuclear powers are modernising and upgrading their arsenals, new countries appear to be preparing to acquire nuclear weapons, and threats are being made to use nuclear weapons in ongoing warfare. At this moment in human history, it is worth reminding ourselves what nuclear weapons are: the most destructive weapons the world has ever seen,” a press release stated.

Meanwhile, the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to scientists David Baker, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper, while the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine went to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for the discovery of microRNA and its role in gene regulation.

South Korean writer Han Kang, was awarded 2024 the Nobel Prize in Literature, “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.”

American John Hopfield and British-Canadian Geoffrey Hinton won the Nobel Prize in Physics for pioneering work in the development of artificial intelligence. Shortly after the award’s announcement, Hinton raised concerns about the technology he has created.

The prize comes with a gold medal, a diploma and a prize sum of $1 million (913,000 euro).