Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Singurland.blogspot.com



Singur and West Bengal, are you listening

Some years back Tata Steel ran a creative ad campaign with a cryptic slogan: ‘We also make steel’. It claimed, quite legitimately, that apart from its main business activity, the company also ran the best-managed industrial township in Jamshedpur, encouraged sports and supported other corporate social responsibility initiatives. In other words, steel-making was sought to be projected almost as a byproduct of the company’s larger commitment to the nation.
In the context of the Tata Group’s proposed investments in West Bengal and Bangladesh, I am tempted to speculate: if the road blocks to these investments are cleared, and the Tatas set up the small-car plant in Singur and the steel-power-fertiliser complex in Bangladesh, might these enterprises some day prove to be byproducts of a larger endeavour, namely, economic reintegration of the two divided halves of Bengal?
This possibility is within the grasp of the people and politicians of India, especially of West Bengal, and Bangladesh, to close the chapter of artificial division and open a new one of cooperation and co-prosperity. Yes, it is within our grasp if only we care to listen to the great call of 21st-century Asia and also to the centuries-old music of the spiritual-cultural-social unity of Bengalis on both sides of the border.
It is not difficult to know why some sections of Bangladesh’s political and intellectual establishment — since its creation in 1971, the country has received only $3 billion of FDI — have fiercely opposed the Tatas’ offer to invest nearly $3 billion in the country’s core industrial sectors. The main reason lies in the rise of anti-India sentiments, stoked by the rising power of foreign-funded Islamist forces. These forces are also the principal opponents of India-Bangladesh cooperation to harness the latter’s considerable natural gas reserves. India-locked on three sides, Bangladesh simply cannot use its natural gas except within a framework of cooperation with India. Yet there is an entrenched mindset in Bangladesh that resists such a move.
What is appalling, however, is to see that some forces in our own Bengal seem determined to keep it industrially underdeveloped, economically stagnant and thus incapable of opening new avenues of employment and wealth-creation. Until recently the communists themselves were responsible for Bengal’s de-industrialisation. But now that the CPM has finally realised its mistake, its opponents are using the traditional communist methods to oppose a project that promises to become the harbinger of the state’s re-industrialisation.
How ironic. With due respect to Mamata Banerjee, who is spearheading the opposition to Singur, I have to say that her agitation militates against both West Bengal’s immediate interests and India’s long-term interests. She has many admirable qualities, but if she wants to be taken seriously as the potential successor to Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, she has to look beyond her party’s rural base for the next panchayat elections. She must expand her vision to see the big opportunity that India has not only to accelerate economic growth in our eastern and northeastern states, but also to pull our estranged eastern neighbour into a new paradigm of sub-regional cooperation, which alone can make Tagore’s dream of ‘Amaar Shonaar Bangla’ for undivided Bengal come true.
Today, regional and sub-regional cooperation is the axis around which the wheel of economic growth is turning. The nay-sayers to new investments in West Bengal and Bangladesh should glance eastwards to see how this wheel has turned in the direction of poverty alleviation, employment generation and shared prosperity. Not long ago, undivided Bengal was more advanced than several countries in Southeast and Far East Asia. Kolkata itself was ahead of Shanghai. Today, if Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea and, lately, even Vietnam, have left West Bengal and Bangladesh far behind, it is primarily because they
realised the virtue of economic cooperation. Fifty-five per cent of Asia\\'s trade is now within the region, and this figure is rapidly rising. No wonder, America and Europe have had to confront the truth, which was unimaginable earlier: their domination of the world’s economy, and hence politics, is nearing an end.
Every vibrant centre of enterprise has a demonstration effect on the neighbourhood, eventually leading to a symbiotic way of collective growth. Thus, Singapore spurred Malaysia’s success. Japan’s miracle influenced China, and today China’s growth sustains the Japanese economy. In spite of the political problems between the two neighbours, today there are 35,000 Japanese companies operating in China, employing 10 million Chinese. There are also 100,000 Japanese working in China. Goods and capital are moving almost freely here. The Asean and East Asian region have been transformed into an integrated manufacturing plant, in which some components are made in one country, others in another country and the final product is assembled in and exported from a third country. Can we not envision a similar transformation in our eastern region? Is it impossible that an economically vibrant West Bengal will not open the eyes of Bangladeshis, just as the success of Narendra Modi’s ‘Vibrant Gujarat’ initiatives have opened the eyes of many communists, whether they admit it or not?
What India and Bangladesh need are visionary leaders in politics, business and public life. Leaders who refuse to live in the past and are determined enough to script a new future for our children whose grandparents were, after all, once part of the single family of undivided India. In this endeavour to re-integrate our two countries economically and socially, we should learn from the EU. Last week some Auroville-based European devotees of Maharshi Aurobindo organised a seminar in honour of Jean Monnet, a French statesman regarded as the architect of European unity. From the ashes of World War II, he extricated the golden idea of economic cooperation. He began with something as mundane as establishing the European Coal and Steel Community with Germany and France, bitter rivals in the war, as its core members. The idea evolved and engendered the EU. It now has 27 member-countries, which have broken down walls that divided them in the 20th century. Shouldn’t India and Bangladesh pull down the ‘narrow domestic walls’ keeping them apart to the detriment of both?

Singur - People of Singur say yes to Tata Car Factory

Singur - People of Singur say yes to Tata Car Factory
Mamata - The people have slammed the nail in your grave.Thank God, the people have finally awoken and arisen. The message is very clear. Even the blind can see it. The writing is on the wall and everywhere. The people of Singur want Industrialization. They want progress and development. They want the Tata car factory to come up ASAP. Why else would the people come out and vote for the CPI(M) and not the Trinamool. Mamata, you must hurriedly now call a press conference and shout at the top of your voice how the CPI (M) cadres obstructed the Trinamool supporters from casting their votes. How, the police lathi charged the poor farmers who were against farmland acquisition and did not allow them to vote and how when you tried to intervene - the police tried to molest you with - Buuke Haath Deeyeche, Blouse cheere diyeche etc etc. But now all those stunts of yours are passe.

The truth is out - Its out in the form of people's mandate.
Today morning results were announced and find below the news which pti has on its site :

PTI NEWS
SINGUR

CPI(M) retains two GP seats in SingurSingur (West Bengal),

May 30 (PTI) The CPI(M) retained two seats at Balarambati and Bora gram panchayats in panchayat elections inSingur block of Hooghly district today.CPI(M)'s Mortaza Mondal and Dinesh Malik emerged as winners,official sources said.The opposition Trinamool Congress had launched campaign against farm land acqusition for Tata Motors project in Singur for the panchayat polls.

How else does one explain the romping in home of CPI(M) in the two key seats of Singur ? After all the Tamashaa and monkey business by the Trinamool, the least expected was Trinamool winning hands down all the seats in and around Singur.
But Alas! people are not fools Mamata di. They know whats good for them. Its still time - Back Out Mamata and save your face

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Singur - How may more should die for Mamata

You dont fool anybody with your cheap stunts. Everyone knows what you are eyeing. Playing the poor to reach the CM seat. Dont we all know it ? For the benefit of all let me put in proper political perspective what exactly you are playing at. So here goes Mamata - your little secret is now unveiled :
Lets begin with the centre. The footprints of the UPA govt are staggering and on the wane. Specially of the congress, as the recent state elections show. Now, UPA’s next most important constituent, the CPM, which lends outside support to the government, is currently experiencing tremors of the worst ever crisis in its history. The crisis had ebbed out, but obviously you had to fire it high and so we had bloodshed in Nandigram.
You know that the Relations between the Congress and the CPM, which were never genuinely harmonious, are becoming more discordant with each passing month. You also know that the bastion of the left is in West Bengal. And there you see the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Your devilish mind figures out that the strongest destabilising threat to the UPA will likely come from that hitherto bastion of stability — West Bengal. So you are misleading people to create a hole in the 30-year-old communist fortress in the state, engendering a distinct possibility of its collapse in the next election. In your mind, then the Congress high command will be tempted to see Bengal as one of the big northern states where, in alliance with Mamata Banerjee, it can wrest power from the communists and also win a big chunk of seats in the Lok Sabha. The temptation will be all the greater since the Congress is likely to fare badly all across the northern belt.
Beware Mamata we all know what's in that petty mind of yours। But remember, selling your soul - as you have done to the devil, always comes back. Means, how many more lives' would be lost in this vampish quest of yours'?

Mamata - How many more lives you need to become the CM of West Bengal?