Daily Briefing: Power shift in Tata Group as N Chandrasekaran quits; Prashant Kishor interview

With that, let’s move on to the top stories from today’s edition:

• N Chandrasekaran to quit Tata Sons
• Prashant Kishor interview
• KL Rahul’s return to Sri Lanka

🚨 Big Story

N Chandrasekaran has decided to quit as chairman of Tata Sons, the principal shareholder of the Tata Group. He will continue till February 2027, that is, when his current tenure ends. Chandrasekaran will not seek reappointment for another term in Tata Sons. His exit comes in the wake of differences of opinion in Tata Trusts – which hold 66 per cent stake in Tata Sons. Tata Trusts trustees, led by Chairman Noel Tata, had informally decided against renominating Chandrasekaran as a Director and renewing his tenure as Chairman of Tata Sons. Now, the Tata Group will have to search for a successor to Chandrasekaran in six months.

Following Ratan Tata’s death in 2024, Noel Tata stepped into the role of the Chairman of Tata Trusts, the principal shareholder of Tata Sons. However, it was no easy journey. It took Noel Tata more than a decade, and two missed opportunities, for the 69-year-old to finally step into a position of real influence. Following Mehli Mistry’s exit, he emerged as the undisputed head of the Trusts. However, his differences of opinion with Chandrasekaran came out in the open earlier this year. Now, with Chandrasekaran’s exit from the leadership race, Noel Tata is likely to wield influence over the selection of the next Chairman of Tata Sons. His position, along with his growing role in the group’s governance, could make him a key voice in determining the leadership transition at the apex of the Tata conglomerate. My colleague George Mathew delves deeper into Noel Tata’s influential journey.

⚡ Only in Express

“The Gen Z unrest had little direct bearing on Bankipur. The BJP lost Bankipur due to localised factors. The NDA appointed a Chief Minister (Samrat Choudhary) who lacks broad social acceptance.”

In an exclusive interview to The Indian Express, Jan Suraaj Party (JSP) founder Prashant Kishor speaks about his latest poll victory, the Jantar Mantar and Jharkhand protests, his vision for his constituency, alternative politics, and Bihar in the post-Nitish Kumar era. JSP defeated the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in its bastion of Bankipur in a Bihar Assembly bypoll.

📰 From the Front Page

Standoff: The face-off between the BJP-led government at the Centre and the Opposition in Parliament continued on Wednesday, with Union Home Minister Amit Shah saying he is ready to answer questions on police action against protesters in Delhi last month. The Opposition, however, rejected Shah’s proposal for a two-day discussion on the NEET paper leak and other issues, followed by a reply from him, saying it was not interested in the minister’s “lectures”. “Rules and procedures have been made for discussion in Parliament; someone asks me to just give a statement — something as serious as this cannot be debated like that. This may be in your tradition, but it is not the Parliamentary tradition,” Shah said.

Failure: An inquiry committee has found that unexplained Rs 500 currency notes were discovered at former High Court judge Justice Yashwant Varma’s official residence in New Delhi. It also stated that the judge failed to provide a satisfactory account of their origin. This comes after the Lok Sabha Speaker constituted the panel to investigate the ground upon which Justice Varma’s removal was sought. The panel report said that material evidence was neither secured nor preserved, the crime scene was compromised before official inspection, and the subsequent disappearance of the cash remains unexplained. The panel said this finding rests on a failure to preserve evidence and institutional acquiescence rather than proof of direct physical removal by the judge.

📌 Must Read

UPI: In 2025-26, the number of digital transactions in India reached an astonishing 28,174 crore. About 86% of these payments were from a system that didn’t even exist until a decade ago — Unified Payments Interface (UPI). More than 55 crore people use UPI now and 703 entities — from banks to payment service providers — are involved in facilitating its transactions. However, this payment method now sits at a crossroads. An amendment to the Payments and Settlement Systems Act of 2007 has now removed the barrier to merchants being charged a fee for receiving payments via UPI. Here’s the UPI story.

In our Opinion section today, Dr Rakesh Sinha, a BJP MP in Rajya Sabha, discusses the motives behind Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat’s dialogue with students, and shares why it should resonate across the political spectrum. Sinha writes: “The student agitation shows that democratic consciousness is not a prisoner of self-appointed opinion-makers and even lawmakers. The RSS demonstrated the depth of its commitment during the 1970s when it fought for democracy. Bhagwat’s recent words mark another phase in RSS history. The message is that democracy is made up of more than legislatures. It is the people’s empowerment and their views that are its lifeblood.”

⏳ And Finally…

Return: KL Rahul returns to Sri Lanka as one of the batting pillars of India, a man for tough conditions, and already one of the country’s most successful Test openers. The two-Test tour has offered Rahul a shot at defining a series with big hundreds and stretching his average to a bandwidth that aligns with his true potential. His career as an opener and his impact can’t be truly measured in numbers. However, he would feel aghast at himself for both squandering his starts as well as not kicking on to make daddy hundreds after reaching three figures. What’s the reason behind the fallback? “Only Rahul could tell whether it is a case of him losing concentration, or feeling tired. Perhaps, it could be both,” writes Tanishq Vaddi. Read the full story here.

🎧 Lastly, don’t forget to tune in to today’s episode of our 3 Things podcast, where we discuss plans for an urban centre spanning 124 villages, being referred to as the Third Mumbai; Karnataka’s year-long ban on sale of gutka, pan masala, other tobacco products; and more.

That’s all for today. Have a wonderful day!

Until tomorrow,
Ariba

Business As Usual by E P Unny