Best of the Week | An 'epiphany', a complaint and 36 caveats: Inside the Tata Trusts rift

Best of the Week is a weekly newsletter by Siddharth Sharma/Shravani Sinha. Subscribe to Mint's newsletters to get them directly in your inbox.

The Tata boardroom drama has now moved into the trustees' room, and the letters are getting sharper.

Noel Tata and three fellow trustees of the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust (SDTT) have sent a five-page letter to colleagues Venu Srinivasan and Vijay Singh. Its target is their public backing for listing Tata Sons, which the letter sarcastically calls an "epiphany" that struck in April. The four say the pair never raised the idea at three SDTT board meetings since April and chose the media over their co-trustees instead. The letter also lays bare the arithmetic inside SDTT: four trustees on one side, two on the other.

SDTT owns 27.98% of Tata Sons, the holding company of India's largest conglomerate, and the letter says the Trusts' settled position has long been to keep it unlisted. Then came 17 September, when the Tata Sons board outvoted Noel to give N Chandrasekaran a third term as chairman and began moving towards a listing. Srinivasan voted with the majority.

There is a procedural sub-plot too. After the board backed a listing, Tata Trusts suggested on 28 September that Tata Sons could merge two subsidiaries to drop their core investment company and non-banking financial company tags. Singh and Srinivasan said they were not consulted. The four trustees counter that the Tata Sons board itself asked the Trusts to work on options for complying with the RBI's communication, and that Srinivasan was in the room.

Now the regulator has entered the picture. On 25 September, Srinivasan and Singh filed complaints with the Maharashtra Charity Commissioner, alleging SDTT's direct involvement in Tata Sons' commercial affairs and interference with the independent decision-making of nominee directors. Srinivasan has also urged action against any wrongdoing an investigation finds, including the possible suspension or removal of Noel as SDTT chairman. The commissioner has given SDTT until 12 October to reply.

Noel's camp sees an irony. The two who are asking for collective deliberation, they say, had already asked the regulator to stop the trustees from meeting at all, and never told the Trusts about their complaints. The four trustees now hope both complaints will be withdrawn. Will they be?

Precedent adds spice. In May, the commissioner barred the Sir Ratan Tata Trust, which owns 23.56% of Tata Sons, from holding meetings or taking decisions, after Srinivasan alleged that its permanent trustees exceeded a state limit.

Noel and his son Neville are not waiting around. On 1 October, they filed 21 and 15 caveats respectively with the commissioner, hoping to be heard before any order lands. The timing is interesting, because the Trusts' combined 65.9% voting power in Tata Sons could count for a great deal.

Meanwhile, the letter insists the Trusts neither run Tata Sons nor seek to. Their shareholding is the principal asset funding their charitable work, it says, and protecting it is stewardship, not business. Srinivasan and Singh see things very differently, and that disagreement may now be for the regulator to weigh.

On to the best of Mint's journalism from this week:

After the RBI hike: EMIs, stocks and a stubborn inflation problem

The RBI's first rate hike in nearly four years was only the opening act. Now the aftershocks are arriving. Borrowers are bracing for higher EMIs or longer tenures, and consumer stocks have already slipped as investors fear a hit to festive spending. Banks, flush with liquidity, may find the hike a welcome cushion for their margins. Behind it all is inflation. Economists polled by Mint expect September's retail inflation to hit a 23-month high, with pressure spreading beyond a few food items. The central bank has also signalled that more hikes may follow.

Courts block Trump's H-1B fee, but a green card squeeze follows

Washington's visa crackdown is hitting trouble in court, yet opening a new front elsewhere. Two US courts have pushed Trump's $100,000 H-1B fee towards a dead end, finding the administration overreached. But the White House has not blinked. The US has now suspended green card labour certifications for six big outsourcing firms, including TCS, Infosys and Wipro, citing ongoing investigations. For India's IT majors, the immediate damage may be limited. They account for under 2% of such applications, and existing employees can keep working. The bigger worry is: what happens to the talent these firms most want to keep?

Mumbai's airport rebuild hits turbulence

Mumbai airport's makeover has turned into a tug of war, and passengers are caught in the middle. Adani-run MIAL wanted to cut about a third of weekly international departure slots from 25 October to make room during Terminal 1's rebuild, with some flights heading to Navi Mumbai, 50 km away. Airlines said no, pointing to schedules approved months ago and asking why the cuts were needed. Now the civil aviation ministry has hit pause and sent everyone back to find common ground after 13 October. Adani insists the move is temporary. But for flyers, a different airport could mean higher fees and messier connections.

Angel One bets big on one app to do it all

Angel One once won customers with printed research and branch networks. Then the internet rewrote the rules, and it went fully digital. Now the 30-year-old broker is reinventing itself again. It has shed nearly a fifth of its workforce as rivals Groww and Zerodha pull ahead on profits. Tighter derivatives rules and a shrinking pool of active investors are squeezing the business that once fuelled its growth. Its answer is a "super app" that bundles broking, mutual funds, insurance and credit under one roof. The bet is that existing customers will do more with the company.

The missing 'wow factor' behind India's FPI exodus

India has become cheaper, yet foreign investors keep heading for the exit. That is the mystery haunting Dalal Street. Through September, net foreign equity outflows hit ₹2.60 trillion, and the Nifty trailed every global peer Mint tracked. Meanwhile, Asian rivals riding the AI and semiconductor wave raced ahead. But look at the primary market and the story shifts. Foreign investors have been net buyers there every single month this year. So have they really given up on India, or are they simply getting choosier? And what would it take to bring them back? Experts point to earnings upgrades, a steadier rupee and softer crude.

Sriram Group's equities push

After building a ₹48,178 crore-income lending business, Shriram Group is making a bigger push into capital markets, betting on India's growing appetite for investments. Its revamped business will combine broking, mutual funds and wealth management, using digital tools alongside human advice to reach investors beyond big cities. The group is rebuilding Way2Wealth as an advice-led platform, with plans to expand margin trading finance. But the timing is tricky: volatile, range-bound markets threaten brokerage revenues, while established players dominate the space. Can Shriram turn its vast lending customer base into a new generation of investors?

Sebi's unspent protection fund

Sebi's investor protection fund has nearly quadrupled to ₹969.8 crore in FY26, but spending has barely budged. The regulator used just ₹4.7 crore, or 0.4% of the corpus, even as financial-influencer scams, online investment frauds and digital arrests proliferate. A Sebi survey found 62% of investors base some or most investment decisions on finfluencer recommendations. The underutilization has caught the government's attention, though no decision has been made on intervention. Experts argue the fund could do more, from financing cybersecurity research to expanding investor awareness, while calling for greater transparency on spending and outcomes.

Performance-linked staffing

India's staffing firms are moving beyond supplying workers to being accountable for their performance. Quess Corp, TeamLease Services and Adecco are seeing growing demand for output-based billing, where vendors face penalties or lose fees if workers miss client targets. About 10-15% of Quess clients already seek some form of output-driven service. The model can command fees of 10-20% per candidate, compared with 9-10% under traditional staffing. Rising labour costs and absenteeism are driving adoption, while AI-led productivity gains are pushing clients to pay for outcomes rather than activity. Adoption remains at an early stage.

Fast-tracked luxury cars

Mercedes-Benz and BMW are bringing global models to India faster, shrinking launch delays from 10-12 months to around 4-6 months as buyers demand access to the latest vehicles. Mercedes plans to introduce its GLC electric model six months after its European debut, while BMW has brought some performance models within three to four months. Right-hand-drive conversions and regulatory certification remain hurdles. The push reflects India's growing importance and rising demand for premium vehicles. Mercedes sold a record 15,190 cars in January-September 2026, up 8% year-on-year, while BMW's April-June deliveries rose 17% to 4,507.

Gender gap on your commute

Women's commutes in India reveal a stark gender divide, according to the first National Household Travel Survey, covering 1.8 million people. The share of rural women travelling over 1 km to work is just 37.7%, against 64.2% travelling for education. In cities, the share falls from 67.5% to 52.9%. Rural women largely walk to work, while urban women rely more on buses and other public transport. Men depend heavily on two-wheelers. Safety also shapes travel patterns, with women generally leaving work earlier. Men typically spend more on commuting each month.

That's all from us this week. Subscribe to our newsletters and the website for what's in the news and beyond it. Write to us at newsletters@livemint.com.