Monday, February 05, 2007
More protests on Tatas' Singur plant
2007-02-05: The farmers in Singur are losing patience, and yesterday, it showed once again, reports CNBC-TV18.
Police resorted to lathi charge and tear gas, and even used a water cannon to disperse the angry farmers protesting about the farmland been allotted to the Tatas for a small car plant in Singur, West Bengal.
Meanwhile, Mamata Banerjee, who made a high-pitched return to the centre stage of protests, said she would not allow the state government to acquire agricultural land for industries or SEZs. And the Trinamool chief is slated to visit Singur today.
It seems to me that the important issue is the environment. There are definitely various ways the green issues can be dealt with and that is what is important overall. If not, everyone will be the losers. Even Ratan Tata has to live on the world and if that is uncomfortable, he will not like that either. The farmers do not want to lose their land, either to short sighted industrialists like Tata so far seems to have been, or to vast agribusinesses who will put them out of work in a few years. On the face of it, Walmart type businesses do not seem right for India. I heard a BBC program today where some Punjabi was saying something to the effect "I just made millions from mobile phones, now I am going to do the same in agribusiness". Well he could certainly make a fortune in the Punjab, hard to avoid it in Punjab agriculture but overall a certain element of forethought is needed... Estimates show that Walmart style agribusinesses would render millions unemployed..Methods are genuinely improving. But simplistic Walmart methods give one sad memories of the UK 'ground nut' scheme in Africa, which was disastrous because it tried to use UK methods in African conditions. Perhaps the Walmart style guys are setting up an unmitigated disaster.Yet India needs to modernise agriculture. Common sense, realism and caution sound reasonable, not rushing to US methods for a quick profit. and certainly when cars are built , they should be pollution free.I see a bright future for India if it gets things right, not if it gets them wrong. Global pollution and efficient agriculture have to be seriously dealt with. Closing farms to build smelly cars is not one of the answers as China is finding out - possibly to late for China. But it is not too late for India.
IMO:. One place Banerjee could perhaps win support is from the global environmental lobby.
Agriculture must modernise some way but Banerjee looks a lot more right than the Tata over Singur since the land is the farmer's land and Tata just want to build cheap smelly unenvironmentally friendly cars, AFAIK
Police resorted to lathi charge and tear gas, and even used a water cannon to disperse the angry farmers protesting about the farmland been allotted to the Tatas for a small car plant in Singur, West Bengal.
Meanwhile, Mamata Banerjee, who made a high-pitched return to the centre stage of protests, said she would not allow the state government to acquire agricultural land for industries or SEZs. And the Trinamool chief is slated to visit Singur today.
It seems to me that the important issue is the environment. There are definitely various ways the green issues can be dealt with and that is what is important overall. If not, everyone will be the losers. Even Ratan Tata has to live on the world and if that is uncomfortable, he will not like that either. The farmers do not want to lose their land, either to short sighted industrialists like Tata so far seems to have been, or to vast agribusinesses who will put them out of work in a few years. On the face of it, Walmart type businesses do not seem right for India. I heard a BBC program today where some Punjabi was saying something to the effect "I just made millions from mobile phones, now I am going to do the same in agribusiness". Well he could certainly make a fortune in the Punjab, hard to avoid it in Punjab agriculture but overall a certain element of forethought is needed... Estimates show that Walmart style agribusinesses would render millions unemployed..Methods are genuinely improving. But simplistic Walmart methods give one sad memories of the UK 'ground nut' scheme in Africa, which was disastrous because it tried to use UK methods in African conditions. Perhaps the Walmart style guys are setting up an unmitigated disaster.Yet India needs to modernise agriculture. Common sense, realism and caution sound reasonable, not rushing to US methods for a quick profit. and certainly when cars are built , they should be pollution free.I see a bright future for India if it gets things right, not if it gets them wrong. Global pollution and efficient agriculture have to be seriously dealt with. Closing farms to build smelly cars is not one of the answers as China is finding out - possibly to late for China. But it is not too late for India.
IMO:. One place Banerjee could perhaps win support is from the global environmental lobby.
Agriculture must modernise some way but Banerjee looks a lot more right than the Tata over Singur since the land is the farmer's land and Tata just want to build cheap smelly unenvironmentally friendly cars, AFAIK
# posted by uv : 1:27 AM
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