‘Steel Man of India’ Jamshed Irani passes away at 86: The “Steel Man of India,” Jamshed J Irani, died suddenly at age 86 at Jamshedpur’s Tata Main Hospital. Irani received his BSc from Science College in Nagpur in 1956 and his M.Sc. in Geology from Nagpur University in 1958. He was born on June 2, 1936, in Nagpur, the son of Jiji and Khorshed Irani. Irani stepped down from the Tata Steel Board of Directors in June 2011.
October 2022 Current Affairs Quiz
The career of Jamshed J Irani?
- Jamshed J Irani graduated with a BSc in Science from the Science College in Nagpur in 1956 and an MSc in Geology from Nagpur University in 1958. Irani then went to the University of Sheffield in the UK as a JN Tata scholar, where he secured a Master’s in Metallurgy in 1960, and a PhD in Metallurgy in 1963.
- He started his professional career with the British Iron and Steel Research Association in Sheffield in 1963. But he always wished to contribute to India’s industrial progress.
- Irani returned to India in 1968 and joined Tata Steel or Tata Iron and Steel Company, as it was then called, and joined the firm as an assistant to the director in charge of research and development.
- In 1978, Irani went on to become the general superintendent of the company. In 1979, he was promoted to the rank of general manager, and eventually, in 1985, he became the president of Tata Steel.
- Before retiring in 2011, he served as Tata Steel’s joint managing director from 1988 to 1992.
- He joined the Board of Tata Steel in 1981 and was also a non-executive director from 2001 for a decade. Besides Tata Steel and Tata Sons, Irani also served as a director of several Tata Group companies, including Tata Motors and Tata Teleservices.
- He was the chairman of the board of governors at the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow. He, along with his sister Diana Hormusjee, instituted “Jiji Irani Challenge Cup”, a cricket tournament organised by the Zoroastrian Club of Secunderabad in memory of their father.
- He received an honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II in 1997 after being appointed an International Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 1996. Later in 2007, he received the Padma Bhushan government of India. After 43 years of service, he retired from Tata Steel in 2011.