New Delhi: US Ambassador to India, Eric Garcetti, said that the late veteran industrialist Ratan Tata was a giant at heart and that he was the first person who contacted him after US President Joe Biden nominated Garcetti to serve as the 26th Ambassador to India.

Speaking at an award ceremony at the US-India Science and Technology Endowment Fund on Thursday, Garcetti expressed his grief over the death of the Chairman Emeritus of Tata Sons and said that the country and the world mourn his loss.

"We mourn his loss in this country and in this world. When I was nominated by President Biden to serve as the 26th Ambassador of the United States to India, the first email I got from anybody, American or Indian, was from Mr Tata, who had a long history in my hometown of Los Angeles," the US envoy said.

He further said that Ratan Tata was one of those people whose vision was "limitless as the horizon" who helped to show what was possible in India as well as in the world.

"He was one of those people whose vision was as limitless as the horizon who helped show what was possible in India as well as the world... He was a giant at heart," Garcetti added.

Ratan Tata, Chairman Emeritus, Tata Sons, passed away at the age of 86 on Wednesday night at the Breach Candy Hospital in the city.

Ratan Tata, born on December 28, 1937, in Mumbai, was the Chairman of Ratan Tata Trust and Dorabji Tata Trust, two of the largest private-sector-promoted philanthropic trusts in India.

He was the Chairman of Tata Sons, the holding company of the Tata Group, from 1991 until his retirement in 2012. Then he was appointed Chairman Emeritus of Tata Sons. He was honoured with the country's second-highest civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan, in 2008.

(With Inputs From Agencies)