Tata Motors recently created history in India Inc history acquiring luxury auto brands -- Jaguar and Land Rover -- from Ford Motor for $2.3 billion dollars.The company is also the world's fifth largest medium and heavy commercial vehicle manufacturer, and the world's second largest medium and heavy bus manufacturer.

Tata Motors has gained world wide recognition under the leadership of its managing director Ravi Kant. Established in 1945, Tata Motors today has 4 million vehicles on Indian roads, since the first rolled out in 1954.

The company's manufacturing base is spread across India - Jamshedpur (Jharkhand) in the east, Pune (Maharashtra) in the west, and in the north in Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh) and Pantnagar (Uttarakhand). A new plant is being set up in Singur near Kolkata in West Bengal to manufacture the world's cheapest car, the Rs 1 lakh Nano.

Tata Motors, is the first company from India's engineering sector to be listed in the New York Stock Exchange. In 2004, it acquired the Daewoo Commercial Vehicles Company, Korea's second largest truck maker. Tata Motors and Fiat Auto formed an industrial joint venture at Ranjangaon (near Pune in Maharashtra, India) to produce both Fiat and Tata cars and Fiat powertrains for the Indian and overseas markets.

Image: Ravi Kant, Managing Director, Tata Motors. | Photograph:Raveendran/AFP/Getty Images