Intermission

On 12 August 2026, N Chandrasekaran, the TCS intern who became the first non-Parsi chairman of Tata Sons, said he was done. He wouldn't seek another term. Five weeks later, the board brought him back. On 17 September, it voted to reappoint him for five more years, starting in February 2027. Noel Tata's Tata Trusts, the majority shareholder, calls the vote illegal. Tata Sons says it followed the rules. Shareholders still have to approve it at an AGM due by 31 December, and this could end up in court. That chair matters because of the company that produced him. From 2000 to 2026, TCS supplied close to 80% of Tata Sons' dividend and buyback income, roughly Rs 2.7 lakh crore. That money has paid for almost every big Tata bet you can name, from Air India to semiconductors. TCS was never meant to be this. It began in 1962 as an in-house unit to centralise the group's data processing, and Tata companies refused to hand over the work. To survive, it had to navigate the License Raj, when computers were taxed like…

Ask most Indians which IT company their parents wanted them to join, and they'll say Infosys or Wipro. Yet it was TCS that quietly became India's biggest software company, and the engine behind the entire Tata empire. The story goes all the way back to 1968, to a data-processing unit inside Tata Sons that the group's own companies didn't want to work with. It follows TCS as it stumbled into inventing India's IT outsourcing industry, helped carry the world through Y2K, and came to fund almost every big Tata bet, while the boardroom above it fought over who should run the show. The question at its heart: can a company that sold human intelligence to the world survive the age of artificial intelligence? Episode 5 of Intermission on TCS goes live on Thursday, 1 October.

ITC is the great paradox of Indian business: a tobacco company that spent decades trying to become something other than a tobacco company, and pulled it off. Getting there meant surviving a tax demand five times its net worth, the arrest of two former chairmen, and a long, bruising war with BAT for control of the company. It meant winning at atta when even Hindustan Unilever couldn't, rewiring how India's farmers sell their crops, and building it all without a founder or a family at the helm. Today ITC turns over roughly ₹80,000 crore, owns a ₹9,000 crore brand in Aashirvaad alone, and counts the Indian government as its single largest shareholder. Among them, LIC, which insures the lives of the very smokers keeping ITC's profits alight. This is the story of how a colonial cigarette company became one of India's most valuable — and most unlikely — conglomerates. Tune in! --------- We also have an interactive companion page to explore the history of ITC with reading lists, infographics and source notes:…

Ask two generations of Indians what ITC is, and you'll get two completely different answers. That gap might be one of the most remarkable reinventions in Indian business. The story goes all the way back to 1910 — to a British tobacco company that taught India how to smoke — and follows ITC's journey into food, paper, hotels and agri, all without a founding family, and with more boardroom drama than most thrillers. The question at its heart: how does a company build a future beyond tobacco? Episode 4 of Intermission on ITC goes live on Monday, 17 August.

Stream a video, send a message, call a loved one. For nearly 474 million Indians, that connection runs through Bharti Airtel. Over three decades, the company has made it through price wars, near-bankruptcy, a botched overseas acquisition, and two incursions from Reliance. Each time, it weathered the crisis and came back stronger. Investors who held on through every crisis have been rewarded with returns that match the best businesses in India. But the forces that shaped Airtel — regulation, technology, and competition — have never stopped moving. Jio is back, this time with a $110 billion bet on AI and data centres. The hyperscalers are customers today and competitors tomorrow. And the telecom industry is shifting from minutes to bytes to tokens. At the centre of it all is Sunil Bharti Mittal, a founder who operates with the intensity of someone still trying to prove himself, even after building a company worth more than $100 billion. He turns 70 in 2027. He wants to raise his family's stake in Airtel from…

Dozens of companies entered the Indian telecom market in 1994. Almost all of them are gone. One is still standing — and it's how a billion people connect today. Episode 3 of Intermission on Bharti Airtel goes live on June 29.

Sell a Bajaj scooter, finance their EMIs. For years, that was the entire purpose of Bajaj Auto Finance. But consumers in India wanted much more. They outfitted their homes with new television sets, refrigerators, and washing machines. They wanted iPhones, hair transplants, fitness equipment and more. Lending for those hinted at a much larger opportunity. And the Bajaj group seized it. Bajaj Auto Finance became Bajaj Finance. A legacy auto-financing arm went on to create India’s consumer credit infrastructure, shaping how millions buy things. Today, Bajaj Finance manages a loan book of over Rs 5 lakh crore, serves more than 119 million customers, and is valued roughly Rs 6 lakh crore. It is twice as large as Bajaj Auto, the parent company it was spun out of. This is the story of how that happened. Tune in! Our team has built an interactive webpage for Bajaj Finance. It’s a research guide to this episode. Check it out here: https://the-ken.com/story/why-you-cant-ignore-bajaj-finances-call/ Additional material:…

This is Part 2 of Intermission's episode on Asian Paints. We'd urge you to listen to Part 1 first to get a full picture of the company's early history and main bets. — Asian Paints was founded in 1942 by four young Gujaratis in a Bombay garage. Today, it controls more than half of India's paint market. This is the story of how that happened. The company was among the first to tap into the rural market, become a technology company before most people understood what that meant, crack the supply chain, and bring about a new era of Indian advertising. Now, Asian Paints is being met with renewed competition and aggression from Birla Opus, JSW Dulux and Berger Paints. Understanding why this market is so hard to take requires understanding of how it was built. — We also have an interactive webpage exploring Asian Paints' history with reading lists, infographics, and source notes: the-ken.com/intermission. — The full episode runs 6 hours and is split into two parts on podcast platforms. — About Intermission:…

Asian Paints was founded in 1942 by four young Gujaratis in a Bombay garage. Today, it controls more than half of India's paint market. This is the story of how that happened. The company was among the first to tap into the rural market, become a technology company before most people understood what that meant, crack the supply chain, and bring about a new era of Indian advertising. Now, Asian Paints is being met with renewed competition and aggression from Birla Opus, JSW Dulux and Berger Paints. Understanding why this market is so hard to take requires understanding of how it was built. — We also have an interactive webpage exploring Asian Paints' history with reading lists, infographics, and source notes: the-ken.com/intermission. — The full episode runs 6 hours and is split into two parts on podcast platforms. — About Intermission: Intermission, produced by The Ken, dives deep into the histories of iconic Indian companies. Intermission was produced with vital support and assistance from Zerodha, our…