What? Now People of Singur want the “Nano” plant back? I thought I must have overheard something else, however, I was wrong. Global auto major Tata Motors may have moved out its Nano plant from the state but the people of Singur still want the project, says West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. “People of Singur want the factory over there, they are very hopeful and I have conveyed this to the higher authorities of the Tata Group,” Bhattacharjee said in an interview to a private regional news channel here. Almost 40 Kms from the state’s Hoogly district, was no less than battleground for almost two and half years. It all started in May 2006 when the state government allotted land for the Nano project. On Oct 3 last year the company announced it had scrapped its plans to bring out the small car, priced at Rs.100, 000, from the Singur facility. The plant was shifted to Sanand in Gujarat.Tata Motors had to wind up its Singur plant following sustained protests by a Trinamool Congress-led farmers agitation demanding return of 400 of the 997.11 acres acquired for the project. The agitators alleged that the 400 acres were forcibly taken by the government from farmers unwilling to part with their land. “I am trying to set up a factory in that plot in Singur. We have already spoken to a few Indian as well as foreign companies. In fact, now our industry secretary is in China talking to a company over there,” the chief minister said. He, however, said whichever company sets up a plant in Singur, the government would ensure that it generates as much employment as the Nano project was supposed to do and “if possible even more than that. It is very important that the youth of the state get employment,” he said. Talking about land acquisition and the compensation that was provided by the government to the farmers of Singur who gave their land for the Nano project, he said: “Around 85-86 percent of the farmers have taken compensation and of the remaining 10-15 percent many do not stay in India and few others don’t have proper papers of the land. That means the number of unwilling farmers were really small. I failed to make the opposition understand the meaning of ancillary industries. They didn’t understand that this was an integrated project and 400 acres cannot be [...]
Archive for March 27th, 2009
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Sources of History:Tradition, Literature & Foreign Evidence
March 27th, 2009 
Param TRADITION: Almost the sole source of undated History. The knowledge, necessarily extremely imperfect, which we possess concerning ancient India between 650-326 BC, is almost wholly derived from tradition as recorded in literature of various kinds, chiefly composted in the Sanskrit, Pali and Prakrit language. Most of the early literature is of a religious kind, and the strictly historical facts have to be collected laboriously, bit by bit from works which were not intended to serve as histories. Some valuable scraps off historical tradition have been picked out of the writings of grammarians; and several plays, based on historical facts, yield important testimony. Tradition continues to be a rich source of historical information long after 326 BC. ABSENCE OF HINDU HISTORICAL LITERATURE EXPLAINED: the trite observation that Indian literature, prior to the Muslim period, does not include formal histories, although true in a sense, does not present the whole truth. Most of the Sanskrit books were composed by Brahmans, who certainly had not a taste for writing histories, their interest being engaged in other pursuits. But the Rajas were eager to preserve annals of their own doings, and took much pain to secure ample and permanent record of their achievements. They are not to blame for the melancholy fact that their efforts have had little success. The records laboriously prepared and regularly maintained have perished almost completely in consequence of the climate, including insect pests in that term, and of the innumerable political revolutions from which India has suffered. Every court in the old Hindu kingdoms maintained official bards and chroniclers whose duty it was to record and keep up the annals of the state. Some portion of such chronicles has been preserved and published by Colonel Tod, the author of the famous book, ANNALS AND ANTIQUITIES OF RAJASTHAN, first published in 1829, but that work stands almost alone. The great mass of the Rajas’ annals has perished beyond recall. Some fragments of the early chronicles clearly are preserved in the royal genealogies and connected historical observations recorded in the more ancient Puranas; and numerous extracts from local records are given in the prefaces to many inscriptions. Thus it appears that the Hindus were not indifferent to history, although the Brahmans, the principal literary class, cared little for historical compositions as a form of literature, except in the form of PRSHASTIS, some of which are poems of considerable literary merit. Such [...]
