Recent protests at Tata Motors’ project site in Singur have evoked stinging criticism from the western media with one newspaper saying that India’s initiative to build the world’s cheapest car has “driven into a quintessentially Indian ditch”.
“The country’s project to build the world’s cheapest car has driven into a quintessentially Indian ditch,” the New York Times said.
“It’s a slap on the face of Brand India,” it said quoting strategic branding firm Counselage’s Managing Director Suhel Seth as saying. “Which foreign company will want to come in when India’s most respected group cannot set up industry in a state?”
The Wall Street Journal said: “The escalating conflict is the starkest sign yet of how rapid industrialisation is clashing with skepticism towards modernisation and the reach of big business into rural India.”
The company said on Tuesday that violent protests over the land had compelled it to stop building the plant for its much-awaited Nano model.