The Supreme Court today refused to stay the Calcutta High Court order upholding the acquisition of 1,000 acres in Singur for the Nano plant. A bench headed by Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan rejected pleas by a Calcutta lawyer and two Singur farmers to stay the January 18 judgment that held the land was acquired in "public interest'. The apex court, however, issued notices to the Centre, the state and Tata Motors. The farmers' counsel, Kalyan Bandopadhyay, alleged that the land had been acquired "illegally'.

The movement against land acquisition for industry started here. But unlike Nandigram, where not an inch was acquired but violence has become endemic, the buzzword here is development. On the eve of the polls in Singur, where around 1,000 acres were taken over for the Tata small-car project, the land war is not forgotten. But as the deadline for the Nano rollout draws closer, the mood is more of anticipation than apprehension.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to put any roadblock before the world's cheapest car Nano's planned rollout by the year-end though it issued notices to its producer Tata Motors and the West Bengal government following a petition challenging land acquisition. A bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, Justice R.V. Raveendran and Justice M.K. Sharma said it will not order any status quo on the issue of land acquisition for the car's plant in Singur in West Bengal.

The Supreme Court today declined to stay the Calcutta High Court judgment upholding the acquisition of land in Singur by Tata Motors to manufacture Nano, the Rs 1 lakh car. Therefore, there is no court bar against continuing with the project. However, the apex court issued notices to the West Bengal government, Tata Motors and the Centre on a set of appeals against the high court judgment. It might examine the validity of the land acquisition after the governments and the firm appear before it in July.

For the average Indian, Tata stands for ethics, responsibility and environmental consciousness. As a corporate, Tata Steel boasts of a stringent code of environmental conduct. However, there are paradoxes galore in Tata's social and environmental record, including its ventures in Kalinga Nagar, Singur, Sukhinda, Mithapur and Bhopal. The port at Dhamra, a joint venture between Tata Steel and Larsen &Toubro, will be the latest in that list unless the company puts its environmental theory into practice before it is too late.

Nandigram will go for panchayat polls on 11 May in what could be a referendum on the chief minister Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacherjee's industrialisation policy. Keeping this in mind the CPI-M has chalked out its election machinery on the Keshpur and Garbeta model of 2001 to reign in its political adversaries in this rural fringe.

CHINSURAH: Support the "police atrocities' on farmers who have been opposing the alleged "forceful' acquisition of farmland in Singur or face consequences. This seems to be the message the CPI-M wants to convey, even to its own supporters in Singur. CPI-M cadres allegedly destroyed field crops of two active members of DYFI ~ the CPI-M's youth wing ~ who had opposed the atrocities.

The model code of conduct for the May panchayat polls will not hinder land acquisition for industry and other development projects, the state election commission said today. "Some district administrations had stopped land acquisition for industrial projects in view of the rural polls as they thought it would attract provisions of the poll code of conduct. But we have asked them to continue after examining the cases,' commission secretary S.N. Roy Choudhury said.

The Supreme Court has issued notice to the West Bengal government on an appeal challenging the alleged acquisition of fertile agricultural land for Tata Motors' Nano car project at Singur and for Salem group at Haldia. A Bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justice R V Raveendran, while issuing notices to the state and the Centre, allowed an application by Tata seeking to be a party in the appeal so that it could place its views before the court.

After learning its lessons from Nandigram, the West Bengal government is willing to try out alternative models of land acquisition and rehabilitation policy