This is quoted from Calcutta's The Telegraph newspaper of Friday September 5, 2008:
"[Ratan] Tata also told The New York Times that he thought farmers genuinely wanted a different way of life, using new skills in new jobs.
'As each generation develops, the children of the rural economy must decide whether they want to continue to work on the farms', he said."
Great, Mr Tata! And what should we eat then, the Nano? the Indica? the cellphone and Internet bandwidth? steel?
I'm amazed that the scion of one of India's most respected industrial families can make such irresponsible statements. This is also not the first time he's said something like this. Earlier this year, at the Auto Expo in New Delhi he made a similar statement about people in Bengal needing to decide whether they want development or agriculture.
Actually, I'm not amazed. I'm sick of these industrialists who believe that their profit-making, pollution-creating devices are signs of "development".
Witness one more instance where the Tatas have gloriously fucked up. Greenpeace has been waging a very real protest against the Tata's Dhamra port project.
“The TATAs have demonstrated concern over their brand image, but not about the impacts their port construction will have on the turtles and their habitat. They do not seem to care that close to one lakh TATA customers have asked that the port be shifted, or that over 200 national and international scientists and academics, including over 30 turtle experts, have called for the port to be stopped. They are not bothered about the fact that fisher forums, representing the interests of thousands of fishermen in Orissa have called for the port to be halted” said Ashish Fernandes, Oceans Campaigner, Greenpeace India.
Read all about it here.
And the less said about their broadband and Internet services, the less you'll have to read my rant.
So here we are with India's premier industrial behemoth and their so called corporate, social and environmental responsibility. As I said before, my arse!
I think we also need to add our voices to things like this apart from crying out for non-violence and peace in our lives.
3 comments:
it would be a bit naive to expect the tatas to care for farmers. that's not their business model. nonetheless, i think the nano is a good thing, regardless of ratan tata's IQ.
more cars on the already crowded roads? more pollution? but not more food for the growing hungry, and yes, the starving?
If anyone's really happy that TATA didn't succeed in Singur it's ME! We have enough of those obnoxious buggies around us taking us for a ride, literally!
I'm not too sure it'll be them buggy owners who'll buy the Nano as their FAMILY CAR and foul the already decrepit roads further.
Ask me how and I'll give you a separate detailed account of the bleak future this "car" portends for us urbanites.
The next we'll be hearing from the house of Bajaj is that our buggies (Autos, as we know them) must also be called a car!
As you rightly said... "Responsibility? My arse!" If Ratan Tata cared so much about being responsible, he'd never dream of putting them chokers on road. THAT could better be termed "responsibility"... where one has the wherewithal & acumen to disrupt life but gives it the go by in the interest of the public at large.
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