When Jamsetji Tata tried to set up India's first modern steel mill in the face of implacable British hostility at the turn of the century (he began petitioning the British for permission in 1883, and raised money from Indian investors; after repeated denials and delays it finally began production in 1912 under his son Dorabji), a senior imperial official sneered that he would personally eat every ounce of steel an Indian was capable of producing. It's a pity he didn't live to see the descendants of Jamsetji Tata taking over what remained of British Steel, through Tata's acquisition of Corus in 2006: it might have given him a bad case of indigestion.