Gujarat HC Closes Down Tata Nano Land Case, Fines Litigators

Nano Admirer — Sun, 03 May 2009 23:46:33 +0000

There couldn’t have been a better musical piece for Tata Nano’s well-wishers to listen to than the one inked by a two judge bench of Gujarat High Court recently. A Bench comprising of the Chief Justice KS Radhakrishnan and Akil Kureshi not only dismissed the two PILs filed against the Gujarat government’s land acquisition in Sanand for setting up a mother plant for Tata Motors’ benchmark development Nano, but also imposed a 10,000 Rs fine on the petitioners, mostly farmers hailing from the area around Tata Nano’s new home. The HC bench termed the motive of the petitioners “frivolous, speculative and vexatious” and charged them for abusing the judicial process. This seemed to follow a 2007 SC directive, which had asked its affiliate courts to show no mercy while dealing with suspect PILs.

Apart from a few Delhi based media houses and their local cohorts in Ahmedabad, almost nobody from Gujarat showed any sympathy for the the agitating farmers ever. This was mostly due to the timing farmers had chosen to air their grievance. They never had shown any public discontent before for an issue that goes back to the British Raj, when their forefathers had chosen to transfer part of their lands in exchange of a compensation to the government of the day. It was only after Tata’s Singur debacle and a decision to relocate Nano’s mother plant to Sanand, near Ahmedabad, that they started crying foul in public about the whole matter. An intention of milking away from an important accord between the Gujarat government and Tata Motors, and a tendency of misusing the sympathy, which normally gets accorded to the victims of industrial developments, could always be heard from their shrill cries.

This judicial pronouncement may or may not make it easier for other state governments to allot land for industrial usage, as the socio-economic index and therefore the ground realities in Gujarat and elsewhere stand vastly different. However, this would surely provide a further boost to Narendra Modi’s agenda of development, who has ensured during his stay as the Chief Minister of Gujarat in Gandhinagar, that his state leads India’s charge in the 21st century!

A happy Nano fan in Ahmedabad, wishing the One Lakh Car a successful journey ahead!
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May 12, 2009 Update:

More fun! Gujarat HC dismisses yet another PIL against the Sanand land allotment, saying it was intended only for publicity and media attention.

Nano land acquisition: PIL intended for publicity, says High Court

Tata Nano Car Updates

Nano Admirer — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 02:48:31 +0000

Image courtesy of Tata Nano/ Facebook

This is the first in a series of Tata Nano Car updates that I shall publish for my readers in the weeks and months ahead. All my information will be sourced from other resources, including Nano’s official website, but I have plans of visiting Nano’s upcoming mother plant at Sanand and share, if possible, some first-hand experience from there as well. Let me remind you for now that Nano will be launched at a function in Mumbai on 23rd March. The car will be put on display at Tata Motors dealerships from the first week and bookings will commence from the second week of April 2009.

Nano’s official website claims of having recorded 3 million hits until recently. I have had a solitary post on Nano before this one, and that too seemed to be visted by netizens from all over globe. So this 3 million claim should not suprise one! Let me link you to some important articles and photo galleries of Tata nano, before I wound up for tonight.

Nano’s Fast Facts

How They Built Nano

Some Nano Pictures To Download

Watch Nano At 360 Degrees

Tata Nano Europa, Displayed At 79th Geneva Motor Show

Tata Nano On Facebook

Tata Nano On Orkut

India’s Car For The Common Man (BBC)

The Next People’s Car (Forbes Asia)

Nano gets a new home: We are not orphans, says Tata (The Economic Times)

This is what Ratan Tata had to say about Modi’s administration in the above interview after having relocated Nano to Sanand in Gujarat:

“The speed with which they moved was unbelievably fast. If it had been possible to move the assembly line in a day we could have come here.”