The Metamorphosis Scenerio

The Metamorphosis Scenerio

Indian Holocaust My father`s Life and Time- Ninty One

Palash Biswas



The Metamorphosis Scenerio prevails over Indian polity and society, and rural India, particularly the state of west Bengal ruled by Left front no less than three decades.

No one else should understand it better than the capitalist and poet, Marxist Chief Minister of west bengal buddhadev Bhattacharya. He translated the classic in Bengali and his play based on the plot POKA, the Worm always have been applauded by Inteligentsia Bengali.
The absurdity in lifestyle of the ruling classes all over india tells the tale very well. It is Blue all over. Obscene. Disgusting. Peasants starve. tribals Starve. Minorities persecuted. Refugees dehumanised. Rural population is out of breath and environment is raped. And the ruling classes celebrate the festival of Super power status.

As with all of Kafka's works, The Metamorphosis is open to a wide range of interpretations; in fact, Stanley Corngold's book, The Commentator's Despair, lists over 130 interpretations. Most obvious are themes relating to society's treatment of those who are different. Other themes include the loneliness of being cut off and the desperate and unrealistic hopes that such isolation brings.Some also feel the book deals with the absurdity of human existence, leading some literary critics to associate it with existentialism or absurdism. It is also possible to apply Freudian and other forms of literary criticism to the novella.

It is quite a battlefield. You may see the live TV clippings round the clock. Bomb blasts. Guns tottering. Resistance and Repression. Attacks and counter attacks. rapes and Murders.

The Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) has formally cleared Salim Group's investments in the proposed SEZ at Nandigram in the East Midnapore district of the State. Salim Grouo is one of the largest industrial groups of Indonesia.This is despite the ongoing controversy over the acquisition of land in West Bengal for new industrial projects and setting up special economic zones (SEZs). The board has also cleared Salim's proposed investments in other projects that include townships, housing, industrial parks and related infrastructure, official sources said.
The matter will now be transferred to the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) since the proposed foreign direct investment inflows are in excess of Rs600 crore. Salim Group committed a total investment of around Rs20,000 crore over a number of years in West Bengal last year. The company has entered into development agreement with the State Government and the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation Ltd (WBIDC) to act as the developer for the proposed New Kolkata Project. Salim group has already made investments in India in a project for developing an integrated township near Kolkata in a joint venture with a non-resident Indian, Prasoon Mukherjee, promoter of the Universal Success Enterprise (USE group) and the Ciputra Group of Indonesia, the company has informed the FIPB. The new company, NKID, has also obtained the necessary no objection certificate (NOC) from Kolkata West International City Private Ltd (KWIC) and its Indian partner Dhanalakshmi Abasan Private Ltd.

In the meantime, farmers opposed to a controversial car factory near Kolkata broke part of a fence around the site on Wednesday. Two police jeeps were also damaged near the site at Singur. Police fired teargas shells to disperse the farmers.

Tata Motors started work to build its factory in Singur last month to make what the company claims will be the world's cheapest car for 100,000 rupees.

But the project, which has become a test case for the communists, has been mired in trouble with some farmers saying the government took their land against their wills. The government says it has compensated most of the affected farmers.

There have been regular protests in Singur for the past few weeks.

On Wednesday, tens of thousands of Muslims belonging to the Jamiat-e-Ulema Hind group, headed towards a village near Singur, planning to hold a rally against the project later in the day.

A large police contingent was deployed but activists said they were undeterred. "This is just the beginning of (a) huge protest against the communist government's police," Siddiqullah Chowdhury, general secretary of the group, said.

But the Metro and urban population are struck with Cricket Fever. They are detached as the ruling classes should be. They mean nothing but a long wait for century by dada Saurabh Ganguli whose ouster from Indian team was hyped as another partition of India.

Look on Kashmir: Peoples Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti will now onwards move in a private car without any security cover. She will have to borrow it from a friend since she does not own one.

"Perhaps I am the only member of Parliament in the country who doesn't own a car, so I will have to borrow it from a friend," Mehbooba told Hindustan Times in a telephonic interview.

She and her father -- former Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed -- have surrendered their security cover and asked Chief Minister GN Azad to fulfill his promise of reducing troops and their powers in Jammu and Kashmir.

And the Cauvery Feud: India's southern state of Karnataka is suffering sporadic protests over a recent ruling on a century-old water dispute with neighboring Tamil Nadu state. As Anjana Pasricha reports from New Delhi, serious water shortages have emerged in India in recent decades, making water a contentious issue.

Thousands of police patrolled Karnataka's capital Bangalore and other parts of the state for a third straight day Wednesday. They were out to calm public anger at a court ruling in a long running dispute over the sharing of water from the Cauvery River.

The Cauvery originates in Karnataka, and then flows through Tamil Nadu and the states of Kerala and Pondicherry. It is a major source of irrigation and drinking water in both Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

On Monday, a tribunal in New Delhi ruled that Tamil Nadu state will get a far larger share of the water than Karnataka, raising tempers and fueling protests in Karnataka.

Nothing is a worry for consumer citizens of India in Bengal who are over engaged with either Cricket or bookfair.

Nabarun bhattacharya wrote two novels Herbert and Fataru which deal with underclasses. Herbert portrays a Metamorphosis Bengali brand. In Fataru, the outcast under classes revolt and use quite unconventional weapons.




Ashok Mitra writes in his article, `A sense of humiliation’:

`This piece is being written not from anger. It is occasioned by sorrow, despondency and, one must add, a sense of humiliation.

Like a bad coin, the Tata small car project in Singur, in the district of Hooghly in West Bengal, keeps turning up in the news. Controversies continue to rage over the procedure of acquiring land for the purpose of setting up the plant, the justness or otherwise of the amount of compensation paid for the individual holdings taken over, the terms negotiated by the state government with the Tatas concerning the fate of those displaced from the land and, finally, whether the re-industrialisation of West Bengal would have to be entirely dependent on the magnanimity of those who had de-industrialised it in the first place, the state filling the role of only a complaisant spectator.

These controversies need not detain Indians at this moment. What however does is a curious event that took place in Singur on January 21. On that day, a 'bhoomi puja' (done to ward off evil spirits) was arranged there to signal the start of the small car project. It is not altogether clear who sponsored the ceremony. Members of the Parsi community dominate the corporate group of the Tatas; it would be somewhat extraordinary on their part to organise a Hindu ritual as an integral part of any of their enterprises. Research concerning the matter has not progressed very far; what would be interesting to know is whether, in the course of the past one century of their being around, the Tatas ever commenced the operations of a project

with the observation of the quintessentially Hindu religious observance, bhoomi puja. There is something of more serious import. According to statements made by spokesmen of the West Bengal state government, the 997 acres of land on which the project is supposed to come up have been acquired by the state on behalf of the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation.

The entire land is supposed to continue to be in the possession of the corporation; the Tatas are merely being offered the privilege of establishing the factory on its expanse. Were the Tatas keen to have a bhoomi puja, it should therefore have been obligatory on their part to seek the formal approval of the WBIDC. Was such permission sought and granted? Assuming the response to the query to be in the affirmative, did the state industrial corporation seek the views of the left front government that rules West Bengal? The corporation, after all, is wholly owned by the state government.

The question of permission apart, a number of other facts too deserve to be taken note of in this connection. The puja ceremony on was reportedly attended by top-ranking representatives of the state administration, including the district magistrate and the district superintendent of police; the managing director of the WBIDC was also present. The entire ceremony was evidently conducted under their patronage, and the state administration, one cannot abandon the feeling, took a leading part in organising the puja, including taking care of such details as renting the services of a pujari or fetching from the market the coconut shell which was split into two as part of the religiosity. The Tata officials in attendance were from outside the state and would not have been in a position to take charge of these things.

Whatever manner the issues involved are analysed, one particular conclusion is inescapable. The puja was performed on what is claimed to be still government property; it was organised by government officials qua government officials. And this is precisely where anguish begins to seize the mind. The multitude of its supporters and admirers look up to the left front government in West Bengal as the repository of secular ideals; they pin their faith on it to act as vanguard in the relentless fight against the fundamentalists and religious obscurantists.

They consider the left as the only effective countervailing force to crush the conspiracy launched in the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states, like Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, to Hinduize secular India. As they view it, India is a secular republic; the country's constitution says so. The commitment of the constitution must be honoured and, where necessary, defended till the last drop of blood is shed; only the left, millions across the country have been accustomed to think, could be trusted with this assignment. Now they will be in a state of shell shock.’

The Metamorphosis

The Metamorphosis (in German: Die Verwandlung) is a novella by Franz Kafka, first published in 1915, and arguably the most famous of his works along with the longer works The Trial and The Castle. The story begins with a traveling salesman, Gregor Samsa, waking to find himself transformed into a "monstrous vermin". It is widely regarded as a highly symbolic tale with various interpretFranz Kafka .

An interesting idea to consider is: who really has experienced this metamorphosis? Does "Verwandlung" simply refer to the idea of a man transforming into a beetle? Or could it hint toward the development and self-improvement of the other characters involved? The physical development of Grete is another obvious example of 'metamorphosis' as she reaches maturity and develops as a person.

Ms mamta bannerjee has her gimmicks and dramas. She is interested to drag the controversy until the panchayat elections. She seems to be keen to translate the agitation into her Vote Bank.
T rajshekhar, the editor of dalit Voice rightly comments that she is also a brahmin.

Eminent artist and rather an unconventional economist Panesar says aptly the Ruling classes and political parties just care for power equation and Vote Bank.
Thus the peasants stand helpless. they have to fight alone and seek salvage in class struggle infinite which never stops.

Indian peasants suffer Metamorphosis of a rare kind.


The Metamorphosis is a story about alienation, identity, and self-imprisonment. Gregor Samsa awoke one morning and found himself changed. As he found himself in his new condition, he seems not to have realized his position yet, or, in his deluded consciousness upon awakening, not to have metamorphosed at all but perceptively degenerated—as it is true that his new condition is a surprise to him. He was not disenchanted by his physical change but by the rain and the overcast weather outside his window; that, says the story, is what depressed him and made him bed-ridden. Gregor’s profession is a traveling salesman, and, as it is usual for traveling salesmen to stay practically in a different place every night, it is already accustomed to him to wake up in different surroundings and non-consistent circumstances; and as Kafka writes in The Trial, “Waking up is the riskiest moment of the day” in that, to Gregor and to every other person, one takes it for granted that the position of things the night before will stay in the same position the next morning. But what if things change? Gregor awoke from “unsettling dreams.” This furthers the possibility that the circumstances of his mental (and physical) reality changed during sleep.

Starting with the climax, and following with the reactions of the people in the house, the story delivers the effects, but not the cause, as compared to Ovid’s Metamorphoses in which a character, Arachne—from the first story of Book VI—is eventually transformed into a spider as punishment. Kafka’s story explores the life and destiny of the transfigured while Ovid only depicts the act of the metamorphosis itself. Kafka’s technique of storytelling is to leave the cause a secret and leave the effect unjustified. Gregor, compared to Ovid, is in a state of self punishment and self-imprisonment.

The true reality of his metamorphosis is complete when he sees his many legs waving in the air. But from then on he resists any conscious recognition regarding his change or the fact that a change indeed happened—everything but the recognition of his separation from the others. The problem Gregor has at the beginning of the story is that the world around him is beckoning for him to answer the door or to come out. The weight on Gregor’s life is that he is the financial head of the household; nobody else apparently works in his family (or is able to work); their whole present and comfortable existence relies upon Gregor’s employment at the “firm.” Most of the weight is the debt which his father owes to the employer for whom Gregor now works. The biblical allusion of his dilemma is interesting: “pay off my parent’s debt to him”—this means that his parents’ debt makes Gregor the epicenter of all their lives, and therefore Gregor is forced to pay for their indulgences to gain access to his own freedom. Gregor himself is presumably untainted by debt, but his freedom is impeded by the sin-debt into which he was born, which constitutes the idea that he has original sin.

Gregor’s apparent separation from the rest of his family is carried out by his incoherent speech. He is unable to speak in his insect form, and never successfully communicates with his family at all after his physical appearance is revealed to them. He is alienated by being suffered the usage of a voice of some other thing. However, he seems to retain his cognitive faculties, which are unknown to his family.

Curiously, his condition does not arouse a sense of surprise or incredulity in the eyes of his family, who merely despise it as an indication of impending burden. However, most of the story revolves around his interactions with his family, with whom he lives, and their shock, denial, and repulsion whenever he reveals his physical condition. Horrified by his appearance, they take to shutting Gregor into his room, but do try to care for him by providing with him food and water. The sister takes charge of caring for Gregor, initially working hard to make him comfortable. Nevertheless, they seem to want as little to do with him as possible. The sister and mother shrink back whenever he reveals himself, and Gregor's father pelts him with apples when he emerges from his room one day. One of the apples becomes embedded in his back, causing an infection.

Time passes while he is confined to his room. Gregor's only activities are looking out his window and crawling up the walls and on the ceiling. Financial hardship befalls the family, and the sister's caretaking deteriorates. Gregor’s perception diminishes throughout the course of the story. It is apparent that Gregor’s physical size is getting smaller and smaller (small enough to cover a picture frame), and too does the size of his personal identity seem to shrink. Aside from being an untouchable entity in his new state, Gregor decides to hide underneath a sheet when somebody has to come into his room; he is now metaphorically invisible to them. As much as he tries to imprison himself within his room, his family becomes the jailors, locking Gregor in from the outside. Devoid of human contact, one day Gregor emerges to the sound of his sister's violin with the hope of getting his much-loved sister to join him in his room and play her violin for him. But her rejection of him is total when she says to the family:

We must try to get rid of it. We've done everything humanly possible to take care of it and to put up with it, no one can blame us in the least.
The sister then determines with finality that the insect is no longer Gregor, since Gregor would have left them out of love and taken their burden away. Gregor returns to his room, lies down, and dies from starvation, neglect and infection caused by the festering apple his father threw at him months before.

The point of view shifts as, upon discovery of his corpse, the family feel an enormous burden has been lifted from them, and start planning for the future again. Fantastically, the family suddenly discovers that they aren't doing badly at all, both socially and financially, and the brief process of forgetting Gregor and shutting him from their lives is quickly accomplished.


'kafka]) (July 3, 1883 – June 3, 1924) was one of the major German-language fiction writers of the 20th century. A middle-class Jew based in Prague, his unique body of writing — many incomplete and most published posthumously — has become amongst the most influential in Western literature.
Kafka's works – including the stories Das Urteil (1913, "The Judgement"), In der Strafkolonie (1920, "In the Penal Colony"); the novella Die Verwandlung ("The Transformation", tr. The Metamorphosis); and unfinished novels Der Prozess ("The Trial") and Das Schloß ("The Castle") – have come to embody the blend of absurd, surreal and mundane which gave rise to the adjective "kafkaesque".

According to management professor Peter Drucker in his book, Managing in the Next Society (p. 33), Kafka also played an important role in the development of the civilian hard hat or safety helmet, as a young bureaucrat and insurer.

Kafka published only a few short stories during his lifetime, a small part of his work, and never finished any of his novels (with the possible exception of The Metamorphosis, which some consider to be a short novel). His writing attracted little attention until after his death. Prior to his death, he instructed his friend and literary executor Max Brod to destroy all of his manuscripts. His lover, Dora Diamant, partially executed his wishes, secretly keeping up to 20 notebooks and 35 letters until they were confiscated by the Gestapo in 1933. An ongoing international search is being conducted for these missing Kafka papers. Brod overrode Kafka's instructions and instead oversaw the publication of most of his work in his possession, which soon began to attract attention and high critical regard.

All of Kafka's published works, except several letters he wrote in Czech to Milena Jesenská, were written in German.


Clashes at Haldia, Singur; cop killed
Feb 7, 2007, 13:15 GMT

Kolkata, Feb 7 (IANS) Farmers and Trinamool Congress workers clashed with policemen Wednesday at Singur and Haldia in East Midnapore district, in which a cop was killed, several were injured and fencing of the proposed Tata Motors plant was uprooted.

While Gangamore in Haldia under the Bhowanipur police station - close to trouble-torn Nandigram - saw marauding Trinamool Congress and Bhumi Ucched Pratirodh Committee (Committee to Resist Eviction from Land) supporters attacking police and Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) activists, in Singur villagers uprooted poles of the car project fencing.


In the Haldia clash a policeman, sub-inspector Sadhu Chattopadhyaya of the District Intelligence Bureau was lynched by the mob while several cops were seriously injured.


'Four cops were injured in clashes,' Inspector General of Police (Law and Order) Raj Kanojia said here.


Initial reports from Haldia said the sub-inspector was missing since the clash in which at least 20 people were injured. West Bengal Home Secretary Prasad Ranjan Roy confirmed the death.


Meanwhile, at Singur in Hooghly district, villagers again uprooted poles of the Tata Motors car project site at Ujjal Sangha, dug roads at Bajemelia to prevent police access to the area and damaged a brick-laden tractor belonging to the car project at Gopalnagar.


Police used teargas on activists of Trinamool Congress-led Krishi Jami Raksha Committee (Save Farmland Committee) who had barged into the fenced area and uprooted at least 10 poles.


Meanwhile, Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind leader Siddiqullah Chowdhuri held his Singur rally at Bara in Hooghly district and avoided a showdown with police by not marching towards Singur where prohibitory orders under Section 144 of CrPC were imposed.


The Jamiat rally against farmland acquisition had the West Bengal government on its toes, as there were fresh fears of violence if they had proceeded towards Singur in violation of the prohibitory orders.


'(Chief Minister) Buddhadeb Bhattacharya wants a civil war. The black law of Special Economic Zone (SEZ) should be repealed. (Tata group chief) Ratan Tata should not join with the CPI-M cadres to torture people and grab land,' Chowdhuri said at the rally.


Jamiat has expressed its desire to join hands with Trinamool Congress in the fight against farmland acquisition for industrial projects.


Fresh clashes had broken out Tuesday at Nandigram between the CPI-M supporters and militant farmers grouped under the Bhumi Ucched Pratirodh Committee.


Nandigram, where earlier clashes over the proposed SEZ by Indonesia's Salim group had claimed six lives, continued to remain on the boil like Singur.


Fearing a minority backlash and scared of the growing influence of the Jamiat, Bhattacharya later backtracked from Nandigram and admitted that the move was a mistake.


He asked the district magistrate to tear apart the land acquisition notification in Nandigram that led to the carnage in early January and announced a peaceful political process to convince people.


The chief minister, however, went ahead with the Tata car project at Singur even as violence continued and villagers, including women and children, either setting on fire the poles or uprooting them.


Singur antagonists bring protests to heart of Kolkata
Posted by admin on 2007/2/6 14:08:57
Kolkata, Feb 6 (IANS) Protests over Tata Motors' car project in Singur continued to immobilise West Bengal Tuesday as two bombs were hurled at a rally organised by the Youth Congress in this state capital.

One Congress worker was injured at the rally, which was organised at Hazra Road crossing in south Kolkata, after Trinamool Congress workers blocked traffic in a new round of protests against acquisition of agricultural land for the Tatas at Singur, about 40 km from here.


While Ratan Tata said there was no going back on Singur and Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya stuck to his guns as firmly as Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, harried city commuters were at the receiving end.

Congress leader Nirbed Roy, who was present there, said: "Things have come to such a bad state in West Bengal that not even political rallies could be organised now. They (the Communist Party of India-Marxist) are now throwing bombs at us. This is high time that the opposition parties irrespective of colour come under one banner to fight the communists."

At around 2 pm, the Trinamool Congress workers descended on the same venue and blocked roads as part of their hour-long road blockade to protest against the Singur incidents in the past two days and curbs on Banerjee's movement.

Trinamool Congress supporters lay down on the streets and stopped vehicles. They also burnt effigies of the chief minister and other leaders.

The activists also blocked traffic in several other places in the city.

Banerjee was stopped by police at Maitipara on her way to Chinsurah in Hooghly district Monday evening amid violent protests at Singur over farmland acquisition.

The Trinamool Congress leader, who had to cancel her visit to Singur after prohibitory orders under Section 144 were imposed suddenly left for Chinsurah in the same district to visit hospitalised party workers who were injured from Sunday's violence in Singur.

"Mamata will go to Singur again Feb 10. No policeman can stop her. We will see how the Tata take the land," Trinamool leader Madan Mitra said.

"In Singur there would be no Tata car but only Tata rice and Tata wheat," he said sarcastically.

Forward Bloc against SEZs in West Bengal


KOLKATA: Forward Bloc is against any move to set up special economic zones (SEZs) in West Bengal. "It is not a question of [whether they are set up] on agricultural or non-agricultural land," general secretary of the party's State committee Ashok Ghosh said.

By this, the party seems to have gone one step further than other Left parties on the matter - others having confined their opposition to setting up of SEZs on agricultural land and demanding amendments to legislation related to such zones.

"Under no circumstances will we allow SEZs to come up in the State... We will also launch a nation-wide campaign on the issue. We have made our views on the matter known to the Left Front committee and are reiterating it here today," he said.

Mr. Ghosh was referring to talks between the State Government and Salim Group over the setting up of SEZs in parts of South 24 Parganas district and Nandigram area of Purbo Medinipur where six persons were killed in group clashes on January 6-7.

Despite an assurance from Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee shortly after the incident that there would no acquisition of land for the proposed SEZ till discussions are held with leaders at the panchayat level, Nandigram had been tense, he said.

There were reports of clashes between CPI (M) supporters and those opposing the project in the Khejuri area on the outskirts of Nandigram. Police were unable to enter the village to restore order, as people dug up the road leading to it on Sunday.

"We are not against setting up of industries. We only insist that the industrialisation process should be undertaken in deference to specific [socio-economic] conditions prevalent in India," he said.

The Trinamool Congress organised an hour-long "chakka jam" across the State during the day in protest against re-imposition of prohibitory orders at Singur.


PMO seeks relook at FDI in retail
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NDTV Correspondent

Wednesday, February 7, 2007 (New Delhi):

The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) has asked the Commerce Ministry to look into UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi's concerns on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in retail.

The Congress has also circulated a note after Sonia Gandhi wrote a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The party says that it is not taking an extreme position but wants an entire review of FDI in retail so that the common man is not affected.

Two days ago, NDTV had broken the story of Sonia Gandhi writing to the Prime Minister advising caution on allowing FDI in retail.

The Congress President wanted the government to first study the impact of transnational super markets on the livelihood security of those engaged in small-scale operations, before taking further decisions on FDI in retail.

Sonia Gandhi is said to be concerned over the entry of American retail giant Wal-Mart.

The government has already allowed 100 per cent FDI in wholesale businesses but only those that do not have any retail or consumer transactions and 51 per cent FDI in single brands like Benetton have also been allowed.

Besides this, the franchise route is available for big operators.



Singur is not our battle: Ratan Tata

CNN-IBN
Posted Sunday , February 04, 2007 at 08:36
Updated Sunday , February 04, 2007 at 17:12 Email Print

TALKING BUSINESS: Ratan Tata says many Indian corporates still cut corners.



New Delhi: In his first television interview since winning the Corus deal, Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata told CNN-IBN that his company is caught in the political crossfire over Singur.


“I think Singur is unfortunate. It's not our battle. We're caught in a crossfire that's political," Tata said.


Ratan Tata also questioned the business practices adopted by Indian corporates.


“I think we can do much more. From the corporate responsibility point of view this would be much more in focus if enforcement of violation were undertaken in an effective manner,” Tata explains.


Commenting on certain segments of the industrial community Tata says, “There is always a view amongst some segments of the industrial community that they are above the law and they can manage the environment.”


Indicating that even post-license raj businessmen in India still believe that they can cut corners in getting ahead and influencing politicians he says, “Yes, it is still there and if enforcement was stricter and more uniformed then I think India can become a better place.”


In a keenly watched auction that stretched into the early hours of Wednesday, Tata Steel acquired the Anglo-Dutch steel major Corus for $11.03 billion. The competitor CSN had pulled out of the race after a final offer of 603 pence a share.


Explaining the situation, the Tata Group supremo says that he would have never put shareholders of Tata Steel at risk while bidding for Corus, despite paying a price higher than what was originally planned.


“I don’t consider that I have overbid for Corus. We have paid more that what we initially wanted to pay – that we offered in October. And that would have been the price at which we took Corus. Then we had a competitor who came in and between him and hedge funds the price of Corus went up. It never reached a level where we thought it would be a jeopardy to our shareholders to take it. And if we had reached such limit, we would not have taken,” Tata says.


Strongly denying that he is a gambler and that the acquisition of Corus was made in a rush Tata says, “I am not a gambler. We had a limit that we all agreed to. We tacitly decided that we would walk away if that limit was reached. And we never reached it.”


He, however, admits that the fall of share price of Tata Steel after acquiring Corus continues to bother him. “Yes, it did bother me and it bothers me even now because our share is being battered.”


On Wednesday, the shares fell by over 10 per cent on concerns that the deal was overpriced. However, he is hopeful that the situation will improve soon.


“But I believe that this is a short term and a harsh view has been taken. And as I said the other day, I hope that out in time we can look back and say we did the right thing,” Tata says.


West Bengal Government cannot afford to ignore industry: Bhattacharjee

Kolkata, Feb.5 (ANI): The Left Front-led Government in West Bengal is determined to press ahead with industrialisation in the state, despite growing protests from the agricultural community over the seizure of their land.