Mumbai, Oct. 30 -- When India's largest company announced a big-bang joint venture (JV) with the world's biggest asset manager to enter the country's fast-growing mutual fund industry, it marked the coming together of two titans, and ratcheted up speculation to fever pitch. After all, this was in a sense the corporate equivalent of Sachin Tendulkar teaming up with Lionel Messi.

The Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) is not known to play second fiddle in any industry it sets its sights on. And BlackRock, with assets under management of a staggering $11 trillion, is referred to as the third most important economic entity on the planet, behind only the US and China.

This is BlackRock's second innings in the Indian mutual fund ...