An Indian Parsi commercial and industrial family. It is one of the two (with the Birlas) most important merchant families in modern India. The family began in Far East trade, but diversified their operations creating, under Jahangir Ratanji Dadabhai Tata (1904–93), an airline which later became Air India. His nephew, Ratan Tata (1937– ), made the Tata Group a global business with major acquisitions in steel manufacture (Corus Group, 2007), vehicle manufacture (Jaguar Land Rover, 2008), and other areas.