Tata Buys Jaguar & Landrover - Is the Deal Ok?

Tata's deal with Ford has many skeptics. For one, what will be the effect of looming global economic downturn on the market? Then there is the troubled history of UK auto industry - particularly the labor trouble. While on one hand whole nation (except, perhaps the stock markets) felt jubilant after the deal, real success of the deal will hinge on how skillfully Tata's balance the demands of changing economic situations and demands of profitability. Read a Fortune story about the deal below. The story is aptly named 'Tata buys into 40 years of trouble'.

Tata also doesn’t seem all that concerned about instant profits – just as he doesn’t expect instant returns from the tiny Nano car he hopes to launch by year’s end. Instead, he is expected to use the brands and their U.K. plants, executives and labor to help build Tata Motors, which had $7.2 billion sales in fiscal 2007, into a global car company. He’s been on this mission for several years, buying Britain’s Tetley Tea in 2000, a Korea-based Daewoo truck plant in 2004 and steel giant Corus (previously British Steel) last year. Ratan Tata’s hands-off ownership could win him crucial support as he tries to fold the Jaguar and Land Rover brands into Tata. Mark Norbom, the head of General Electric in Japan, wrote recently in the Financial Times about the importance of the “soft side” of a takeover deal. The “look in the eyes that (the buying) company is worthy” has special value, said Norbom, and is something that “does not come naturally to the typical western-trained dealmaker.” Well, it seems to come naturally to Tata and his people. It was evident in the Corus deal, and it seems to be at work again in their Jaguar and Land-Rover plans. This could, of course, mean that Tata is seen - especially by British trade union leaders - as a soft option who will let workforces carry on as usual. Land Rover has had three years of record sales for Tata to build on. But there’s no telling how long the status quo can last, especially if demand slackens in the United States and elsewhere and Ratan Tata has to institute cutbacks at the luxury car makers.

Riding the Elephant Tata buys into 40 years of trouble «

Used-Car Bargain - Economist (Update to original post)

French Stereotypes...Funny Article

Every nation has some peculiar characteristics which sound very funny when looked from outside. This is a very good and funny article in NY Times - well written by Elaine Sciolino. One peculiar characteristic of French people is the love for anniversaries; then there is the the 'french' kiss. Read On...

No anniversary is too minor to celebrate. In my time here, France has marked the 20th anniversary of France’s sinking of Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior, the 200th anniversary of the high school baccalaureate diploma, the 60th anniversary of the bikini and the 100th anniversary of the brassiere. For the 100th anniversary of her birth in January, Simone de Beauvoir was celebrated with half a dozen biographies, a DVD series, a three-day scholarly symposium and a cover of the magazine Le Nouvel Observateur with a nude photo of her from the back.

A Guide to the French. Handle With Care. - New York Times

Cricket!!!

Cricket!!!
Originally uploaded by ganeshkulkarni

This is actually a play ground meant for Hockey - the white banner in background says so. But this also happens to be India - where Cricket rules hearts of people

Wall Street Online 30 Days Trial? Sleeping Webmasters...

Today when I tried to visited Wall Street Journal's website - WSJOnline.com, I was presented to this page...To my surprise, it offered 30 days free access to WSJOnline.com's premium content.


When I clicked on the link, this was the page -


What's this?

Governance 2.0 - Wiki Way of Governance

Stanford Law Professor Larry Lessig Bets 'Wikipedia' Approach Will Transform Congress | Wired.com

Lessig, known for his decade-long role in trying to loosen the entertainment industry's vice-like grip on popular culture by shaping copyright law, is betting that the energy and dissatisfaction exhibited by voters against the status-quo in Washington DC, and the emergence of collaborative software that enables vast numbers of geographically-dispersed citizens to become politically active on their own schedule, will enable a new kind of transparency and accountability in political campaigns. "The problem we face is ... the problem of crony capitalism using money to capture government," he said on Monday during the launch of his project in Washington, DC. "The challenge is whether in fact we can change this. The political experts tell you that it can't be done, that process always win over substance." Lessig and Joe Trippi hope that their project will bring the beginnings of this change by getting voters to challenge their members of congress to commit to Change Congress' four pledges. The project will rely on engaged voters to record and map both the responses by, and the positions of candidates who are running for open seats. The idea is to make what seems like an abstract idea visually tangible through a Google mash-up. The professor wants legislators to promise to do four things which he says will reduce the influence of money on policymaking: To promise not to accept money from lobbyists and political action committees; support public financing of elections; commit to passing legislation to permanently ban the funneling of money to their districts' projects of questionable worth; and to commit to "compel transparency in the functioning of congress." Candidates can signal their intentions to take any one or all of the pledges by filling out a form at the organization's web site, which then formulates code that provides a graphic that the candidates can then place on their election campaign web sites. The Change Congress project hopes that citizens will track congressional candidates' positions on these issues by reporting on them at the web site.

Will this effort have real impact on governance? Or, will it have only a symbolic or pressure group like effect?
Would this kind of effort be successful in India?

Change Congress Homepage
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