PRAGOTI

A run of devastation called an 'agitation,' has had a temporary triumph. It has wounded the both the prospects of industrial investment in the state and the process of industrialisation.

However, we have not an iota of doubt in our hearts-and-minds that the negative 'agitationists' movement shall be met politically. People must come forward. The campaign-movement that would soon unfurl across the state and in the country must be conducted amidst the people, with the people.

Nirupam Sen, Politburo Member of the CPI(M) and Minister of Industry and Commerce, West Bengal responds after the wind up of the Tata small car project.

The Singur issue refuses to die down. The issue has become like a fresh air to the ones who are against the ruling communists in Bengal, and a pain in the neck for the ones who prefers to call themselves pro progress, both in the left and the right sides of the fence. Whatever be the outcome of the Tata Small Car Factory at Singur, this issue would remain a major case study for the left in India. An introspection by Saibal Bishnu.

Kinjal Ghose brings out the politics of 'apolitics' and opportunist alliances that has characterised the opposition to the Tatas' project in Singur.

শহীদ কমরেড সুকুমার, সুশোভন, বিজয়ানন্দ, অনুপ, নুরুল, আনোয়ার, সৌমিক, দেবব্রত। তোমরা ঘুমাও, আমরা আছি লাখো অজুত।

Singur is under siege. The Tata small car factory is coming up at Singur, and the car is scheduled to roll out in a couple of months from this factory. Mamata Banerjee is leading an indefinite 'dharna' at Singur. The arterial road of the state, Durgapur expressway, a part of the NH 2, remains under siege since the dharna started yesterday. Several districts in West Bengal are cut off.

Such is the power of the media, that in recent months, the very names of Singur and Nandigram in West Bengal have become synonymous with forcible land acquisition by the state all over India. This is truly remarkable, because in fact no land was ever actually acquired for industrialisation in Nandigram after the violent protests against it. And it is widely acknowledged that the terms of acquisition of the 1000 acres required for the Tata automobile factory in Singur were the most favourable for the peasantry, of any such acquisition across India.

New data show that, even over the last three years, the extent of land acquired by the State government for industrial and infrastructural purposes was a fraction of the agricultural land distributed under land reform. Prof. V.K.Ramachandran writes in The Hindu. Article courtesy, The Hindu.

The Trinamool Congress is at it again. It has re-embarked in its familiar roll of creating chaos over the small car factory project of Tata Motors in Singur. A so-called movement to save land is crossing democratic boundaries and fomenting violence. A technician working on the project was roughed up with iron rods recently. He had to be hospitalized in a serious condition. A few days ago, another worker was attacked on his way home from the project site.

The recent spate of violence in Nandigram may at least be the reason for some elation to the CPI(M) and its supporters amidst the excruciating grief that the killings of two CPI(M) workers in two consecutive days (August 6th and 7th) have inflicted upon the comrades of the murdered persons. It will at least pierce the veil of “anti- SEZ movement” which the heinous politics of terror inflicted by the BUPC/TMC/Maoists was being branded with by the “liberal” free press of Bengal and India.

The demand for statehood for “Gorkhaland” threatens to snowball into a confrontation between various identities. Editorial in the Economic and Political Weekly.