Farewell to Tata's globaliser

What to make of the departure of Alan Rosling, the "Brit in the boardroom" at Indian blue-chip conglomerate Tata? He is leaving the company, will step down as chair of the British Business group here (leaving a big and still unfilled hole) and be back in the UK by April.

According to Tata's website, Rosling is the man responsible for its "drive to internationalise". The $18 billion the group has spent buying the ailing Corus, Jaguar Land Rover and other overseas gems since he joined in 2004 looked quite smart a year ago, and may well do so again some time next decade. But today it looks as if the conservative titan went briefly beserk.

Which is not to say Rosling is to blame, or is being blamed, or that this is why he's leaving. In fact, word is that Tata chairman Ratan Tata asked him to stay for another five years. But since 2006, Rosling's Indian wife has been teaching at Oxford, and after five years on Tata's board, there weren't really any upward steps left for Rosling to take.

Also, as Tata tries to keep funding its loss-making new buys, the brakes have been put on any "drive to internationalise". So Rosling must suddenly have found himself without a lot to do.

* It's quite hard to understand what's behind a visit here by a City of London team led by policy head Stuart Fraser. When the City set up its Mumbai office early in 2007, visiting dignitaries got virtual red-carpet treatment. London was overtaking New York as the centre of world finance and this city was itself dreaming of becoming an international financial centre. Given what's happened to London since, Fraser's mission to help Mumbai develop "good, well-engineered financial services" may not get quite the same reception.

* Indian finance minister Pranab Mukherjee is getting a brutal media hammering here. His crime? Not being irresponsible, unethical and populist enough in his last interim budget. With an election looming, it's not the outgoing government's place to commit to major new spending — and it can't sensibly afford them. But the media expected him to throw prudence to the winds and throw the electorate a big, juicy bone. He didn't. So he's being punished.