The Sports-India Community

I think Buddhadeb, individually, is trying his best to make this work. Apart from not managing the situation well earlier and he may not have been in a position to provide better financial terms, he has still been okay. Not his party's cadres, of course.

Here we go. Tata shuts Nano plant in Singur

Tata Motors on Tuesday announced that it was suspending work at Nano plant in Singur.
Sources said Tatas are preparing plans to relocate plant and machinery.
More details soon...

And another news article: Tata looking for alternate options to manufacture Nano

"Tata Motors has been constrained to suspend the construction and commissioning work at the Nano plant in Singur in view of continued confrontation and agitation at the site," it said.

The decision has been taken in order to ensure the safety of its employees and contract labour who have continued to violently obstructed from reporting to work, it added.

As a Bengali, I hang my head in shame. The last 103 years (since Curzon partitioned Bengal to destroy it in 1905) have been an unending catalogue of disasters for Bengal, and this fits perfectly into this pattern of folly -- generally brought on ourselves by Bengalis alone (after that initial nudge from the Brits, who decided that the uppity Bengali and Madrasi elite needed to be destroyed if they were to prolong their occupation of India).

That our dysfunctional leadership wasn't able to work out a compromise even in the face of this transformational project speaks very poorly of the Bengali psyche, which has imbibed the very worst of the lessons of the early twentieth century and none of the progressive elements of innovation, enterprise and cooperation that make societies successful.

As a guy from the land of Sankaracharya, a malayali who has often found Bangalis to be the closest Indian group in attitide and cultural uniqueness to us, and who has also gone through a non-stop disintegration of a society's potential over 60 years (if not 100), I feel for you, PKB.

But we Malayalees had lost hope way back compared to some of you Bengalis!

Jay

I am still an optimist on this one. I still think it will work out. Mamata, etc. softened a bit to get to the negotiation table. I expect a deal to be announced and everyone will claim to be the victor. So, the Tatas will not really move unless there is some other government which has come in with an even more sweetheart deal that will give them land for free and extra sops to cover their relocation losses. I think all of this is part of a well-orchestrated drama and negotiating ploy, so I will reserve hanging my head until it really plays out fully. But the ineptness of the WB government certainly gives the Tatas a reason to back out.

On second reads, nothing is that alarming to me. Maybe I am naiive. The people could not enter the factory for the last four days. What option does Tata have except to suspend work? The second article says that Tata is looking at alternate plans for relocation. They would be extremely stupid if they did not *start* making backup plans from now. The project does have uncertainty associated with it, you pay less, you take more risk and the Tatas fully well knew that these were the risks. So nothing is new. I think it will work fine for the Tatas and the WB government at the end.

Jay, at least you Malayalees have created a vibrant tourism industry. "God's Own Country" attracts massive numbers of tourists, and that has become the basis of Kerala's economic salvation. But Bengal is in terminal decline, and the demise of the Nano project will be the final nail in the coffin. (I am hanging my head in shame even though I agree with prasen9 that there is some hope for the project to be revived; the damage to Bengal's reputation as an investment destination, however, has been broadcast loud and clear to the whole world).

Sourav Ganguly speaks up for the future, and stands up to try and save Bengal from itself:

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080903/j ... 781558.jsp

Maybe Sourav should get into politics after he is dropped. Maybe with his attitude and stature, he can bring forth real change. Or maybe he may not want to ruin his comfortable life by wading in muck.

This was a little snippet picture and story at the Telegraph today -
"CPM dalals"
It is sad ... These guys look at the whole thing as a bollywood movie or something

Meanwhile, the Telegraph reported that a dad who had three jobless sons recently join the factory but were out of work and not making any money, got worried and killed himself, taking psticide. I guess the man had finally thought he didn' have to support the boys and found his world crashing once again. The hopelessness in some of these poor people, whose worries are about where the next day's food is coming from, is often forgotten by the politicians who act like they are for the poor. In fact we all forget them, when we talk big economic concepts of supply, demand, price, development etc etc.

Jay

Here is another funny one at The Telegraph on mamata banerjee (the url title mine!)
Mamata paints while Singur burns

Is the Indian democracy and our politicians woderful or what?

The newspaper's caption is funny too - "Mamata Banerjee wielded the brush on Friday afternoon while her delegation was whiling the hours away after lunch at Raj Bhavan, waiting for the talks to begin. The Trinamul leader, who dabbles in three Ps — politics, poetry and painting, not necessarily in that order — tried her hand at kaash phul, which signals the advent of autumn and the Puja season. For over 45 minutes, she was lost in the work of art — much like Emperor Nero (picture above) who came to be associated with “fiddling while Rome was burning” although some historians have painted him in a favourable light. Picture by Ananda Das"

Jay

Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi worked another miracle yesterday, working out a compromise deal between the seemingly intransigent duo:

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080908/j ... /index.jsp

So there may be light at the end of this long tunnel at last...Kudos to Gandhiji's grandson, who is a model of pragmatism. If only our governors were always as effective as this remarkable man.

Not a miracle, PKB. This is pretty much the script. Mamata had no intentions of stopping the project totally; the blame would be too huge for her to bear especially in Kolkata constituency. The only problem is if the Tatas are fed up with this natak (political drama) and some other government has already come up with a substantially better sop. Otherwise, they have too huge an investment for them to move everything now. Till now, things are going as expected (by me).

Same here. I felt exactly as prasen, and knew this was going to happen. I was only unsure of how soon it would happen, and how much of delay and costs would be there. The script has gone exactly as expected by me too.

Jay

I still have a feeling that TATA is going to move away from West Bengal, if not immediately at later stages. But, it is a relief to see Mamata back down a bit.