India’s Tata Group has donated $50 million to one of America's most prestigious universities, the Harvard Business School, the group said.
Tata Group Chairman, Ratan Tata, is a graduate of Harvard and the university’s Dean, Nitin Nohria, is also of Indian origin. The donation is the biggest foreign grant in the university’s 102-year history, it said.
With annual sales of US $71 billion, Tata is one of India's largest businesses. After taking over as chairman in 1991, Ratan Tata revamped the operations of Tata Steel and made it one of the lowest-cost producers in the world. He also launched India's first indigenous car, Indica, which turned around Tata Motors' fortunes. The group recently produced Tata Nano, hailed as the world's cheapest car. Well-known international brand names like Jaguar and Land Rover have also been bought up.
The Tata donation will fund a new academic and residential building - Tata Hall – for the university. More than 9,000 business leaders from around the world are currently enrolled in the advanced management programme at Harvard, first launched in 1945.
In Sri Lanka, the Tata Group has partnerships with Sunshine Holdings and Watawala Plantations.
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