Thank you for joining us today as we brought you all the details and coverage of Ratan Tata's death. We are now ending our live coverage.

This page had contributions from Meryl Sebastian, Neyaz Farooquee, Anahita Sachdev, Antriksha Pathania, Nikita Yadav, Vikas Pandey, Nikhil Inamdar, Sameer Hashmi, Archana Shukla and Samira Hussain.

It was produced by Geeta Pandey and Sharanya Hrishikesh in Delhi and edited by Zoya Mateen in London.

The last rites of Ratan Tata have been completed in Mumbai.

Videos from outside the crematorium showed guests, who included politicians and business tycoons, leaving the venue after paying their last respects.

Tata was cremated with full state honours. Well-wishers are still queuing outside to bid him farewell and scatter flowers at the site of the cremation.

Videos show the police holding back dozens of people who have gathered outside the crematorium where Tata's last rites are being held.

Image source, ANI

Policemen have given a ceremonial 21-gun salute to Ratan Tata at the Worli crematorium in Mumbai.

Ratan Tata's body has been brought to a crematorium in the Worli area of Mumbai.

Thousands have gathered there to pay their last respects before he is cremated with state honours.

Image source, Shutterstock

Jimmy Tata, Ratan Tata's younger brother, also arrived at the NCPA to pay his respects. He has largely stayed out of the public eye throughout his life.

• Thousands of people, including India's corporate elite, politicians and celebrities, have paid their final respects to Indian tycoon Ratan Tata in Mumbai city.

• Tata, who died at the age of 86, was one of India's most reputed business leaders, and had a reputation for simplicity.
• His casket - wrapped in the Indian flag and covered with wreaths of white flowers - has now been taken to a crematorium in Mumbai's Worli.
• He will be cremated with state honours soon.

Sameer Hashmi
Middle East business correspondent, reporting from Dubai

In 2010, Tata surprised the business world by announcing he would retire in 2012, the year he turned 75, sparking uncertainty about his successor after more than two decades of leadership.

Following the announcement, he didn’t do any interviews.

Months later, I travelled to Cape Town where Tata was inaugurating a new Taj hotel. During the press conference, I asked him about his decision to step down despite his PR team’s objections.

Tata calmly told me that “the company was not pushing me out, I was choosing to go, it’s my desire" and in his trademark humour added that he didn’t want to be “carried out in a box” from his office.

When we met a few months later, I asked him about Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), which had reported strong sales for the first time since Tata Motors acquired it in 2008. The company had initally faced criticism for the purchase but a delighted Tata said, “We feel vindicated; we always knew this would pay off in the long term.”

In our conversations, he often expressed his belief that Indian companies could succeed globally. This vision led to other major acquisitions under his leadership - including Tetley and Corus (now Tata Steel).

Tata was pleased with India’s growing global stature and remained optimistic about it, while acknowledging the challenges ahead.

In 2019, when I met him the last time in Mumbai, his final words to me were: “I may not be around to see it, but for India, the best is yet to come."

Image source, Getty Images

The tycoon's canine friend was brought to NCPA by two Tata employees to say farewell to him. One of them told the reporters that the dog had been quite close to Tata.

The dog was rescued by Tata employees from the streets of Goa state over a decade ago. Named after the tourist state, Goa was brought to Mumbai city where it lived at the Tata residence.

Image source, ANI

Thousands turned up at the National Centre for Performing Arts, where Ratan Tata’s body was taken in the morning, to pay their respects. Those in attendance included top industrialists, politicians, film stars and sportspeople.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Shutterstock

Image source, Shutterstock

Image source, Shutterstock

Image source, PTI

Image source, Reuters

Ratan Tata's body is now being moved to a crematorium in Mumbai's Worli area where he will be accorded a state funeral. He had lived and worked in Mumbai city for most of his life.

Thousands of people, including Bollywood celebrities, top industrialists and political leaders, paid homage to Tata at the lawns of NCPA where his body was kept for public viewing until now.

The casket, carrying the body, was draped in India's national flag. Priests from Parsi, Hindu, Muslim, Christian and Sikh faiths read out prayers as people paid their final tributes.

Neyaz Farooquee
Reporting from Delhi

Image source, Getty Images

In 2009, when Tata launched the Nano for about 100,000 rupees (then $2,205 or £1,414), it was hailed as the "world’s cheapest car" and analysts predicted that it would pose a significant challenge to existing brands.

But despite its affordability, the car never captured the buyers’ imagination.

In 2012, Tata publicly admitted that the company had made mistakes. He said they had “wasted an early opportunity” due to inadequate advertising and a lack of dealerships, but insisted that the car was not a flop.

It was relaunched a year later with a focus on making it a city car for younger customers, but it still failed to attract buyers.

It was finally discontinued in 2020. Subsequent reports of plans to relaunch the car have come to nought.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Tata Central Archives

So far, we've been writing about Ratan Tata. Here's something about his company.

Tata group prides itself on its ethics - 66% of the business is owned by charities.

Its unique character was shaped by the passions of its founder Jamsetji Tata and his successors.

Jamsetji had a vision for India summed up by the Hindi word Swadeshi, which means "made in our own country" - an idea that was part of the Indian independence movement of the early 1900s.

From the outset, and before such things were legally required anywhere in the world, the Tatas showed commitment to labour welfare, introducing pensions (1877), the eight-hour working day (1912) and maternity benefits (1921) for their employees.

Read more about the philosophy that drove the Tata business empire here.

Image source, Ratan Tata/Instagram

Tata’s love for stray and abandoned dogs was well-known and often shone through on his Instagram.

He would share photos of dogs in need of help, asking for blood donations or just reminding people to offer shelter to animals during harsh weather.

"My love for dogs as pets is ever strong and will continue for as long as I live," he said in a 2021 interview.

"There is an indescribable sadness every time one of my pets passes away and I resolve I cannot go through another parting of that nature. And yet, two-three years down the road, my home becomes too empty and too quiet for me to live without them, so there is another dog that gets my affection and attention, just like the last one," he said.

The Maharashtra state has passed a resolution urging the federal government to honour Ratan Tata with the country’s highest civilian award - the Bharat Ratna, or the Jewel of India.

Similar calls were made earlier too. But in 2021, when the public took to social media to demand the award for him, he requested people to refrain from this. He said he was happy to contribute to the growth and prosperity of the country as an Indian.

The state government has also announced a day of mourning, while the southern state of Telangana has said it will consider naming a road in his honour.

Billionaire Gautam Adani said in Tata's death, "India has lost a giant, a visionary who redefined modern India's path".

"Ratan Tata wasn’t just a business leader - he embodied the spirit of India with integrity, compassion and an unwavering commitment to the greater good. Legends like him never fade away," he wrote in a post on X.

Image source, Getty Images

The question is generating a fair bit of interest after Ratan Tata’s death, even though he had not been involved in the day-to-day management of the group for some years now.

In 2012, he stepped down as the chairman of Tata Sons, handing over the reins to Cyrus Mistry. But in 2016, Cyrus was unexpectedly removed and Tata returned as interim chairman for a couple of years. In 2017, N Chandrasekaran was named chairman, a post he still holds.

Ratan Tata then became chairman emeritus of the group, a title he held until his death. He was also the chairman of Tata Trusts, the company’s philanthropic arm which holds a majority stake in Tata Sons.

Tata was unmarried and there is no clarity yet on whether any family member will step in to head the trusts. One name doing the rounds is that of Noel Tata, his half-brother. But there has been no confirmation yet from the company.

Thousands of people have gathered to pay their last respects to Ratan Tata. They include politicians and business leaders as well as ordinary people who feel his death as a personal loss. The BBC's Archana Shukla reports from the centre in Mumbai where Tata's body is currently kept for public viewing.

Analysis: Ratan Tata's high-octane public battlespublished at 09:58 British Summer Time 10 October

09:58 BST 10 October

Nikhil Inamdar
India Business Correspondent

Ratan Tata‘s illustrious career was dotted with high-octane public battles.

His biggest fight possibly came earliest in his career when he took on company old hands like Russi Mody at Tata Steel. Tata wrested control from them and centralised what was essentially a motley group of companies that were run with little oversight at a group level.

In 2008, a land acquisition battle between the West Bengal government and Tata Motors in the town of Singur made headlines for months. In the end, Tata decided to move the production of the Tata Nano - branded the world’s cheapest car - to the western state of Gujarat.

Image source, Getty Images

But it was the bitter battle with his successor Cyrus Mistry that was the most acrimonious of all.

Mistry was brought in to head the conglomerate in 2012, but was removed four years later.

Major differences in style of working and Tata’s continued involvement in decision making after retirement were speculated to be at the heart of this bitter falling out.

Mistry was killed in a car crash near Mumbai in 2022.

Once a shy boy raised by his grandmother in Mumbai, Ratan Tata took the 155-year-old Tata group to unimaginable heights during his tenure.

The BBC's Samira Hussain reports.