T. T. Jagannathan
The TTK Prestige chief who turned the company around and gave away his pressure-cooker safety design, honoured posthumously with the Padma Shri in 2026.
T. T. Jagannathan ran TTK Prestige for half a century and made its pressure cookers a fixture in Indian kitchens. He was named posthumously for the Padma Shri in 2026 in the field of trade and industry, from Karnataka [1].
Rescuing the company
Jagannathan was born in Madras on 13 May 1948 [2]. He studied mechanical engineering at IIT Madras and operations research at Cornell University, and returned to India in 1972 to join the family’s TTK Group [2].
In 1975, aged 26, he took charge of T. T. Limited, now TTK Prestige, which was then close to bankruptcy [2]. He turned it around and grew it from a pressure-cooker maker into a wide-ranging kitchenware company, with brands abroad in the US and the UK [2]. Its factories in five states employ thousands of workers [2].
A safety idea he gave away
He is best remembered for the Gasket Release System, a safety mechanism that greatly cut the risk of pressure-cooker accidents [2]. Rather than patent it, he urged the whole industry to use it so that millions of families would benefit [2]. He told the story in his book Disrupt and Conquer [2].
As chairman of the TTK Group he supported causes such as blood banks in Chennai and Bengaluru, a rehabilitation research centre at IIT Madras, and a school in Manjakkudi, Tamil Nadu [2]. He was the first recipient of IIT Madras’s Distinguished Alumnus Award, in 1996 [2].
He died on 9 October 2025 [2].
Sources
- [1] Padma Awards 2026: list of awardees — Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. Accessed 11 October 2026.
- [2] Padma Awards 2026 investiture ceremony brochure: citation for T. T. Jagannathan — Press Information Bureau, Government of India. Accessed 12 October 2026.
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