For someone so richly deserving of it, the honour was long in coming. Last fortnight, the redoubtable Ratan Tata was awarded the Outstanding Businessman of the Year award by the Mumbai-based Indian Merchant Chamber. As the citation noted, Tata not just runs one of the biggest and most professional groups in the country, but he also has managed (God knows how) to keep the legendary Tata values alive. Indeed, over the past three years, Tata has been constantly raising the bar across group companies, disbanding cliques, pushing senior executives to do better, and focusing on shareholder value. One of the most spectacular effects of that is the turnaround at Tata Steel, which made him proud by recently bagging the National Award for Excellence in Corporate Governance. Tata's maxim: compete on a global basis. As Tata asked his audience at the IMC award ceremony: ''Can (India) create a name for (itself) abroad? I think, it can.'' And, no doubt, Tata will be one of the few leading India Inc. from the front.