SAIL’S TOWNSHIP at PURANAPANI IS now A GHOST TOWN, BUT A NEW P-P-P PROVIDES NECESSARY HOPE OF REVIVAL BY Sutanu Guru
This small story must start start with a big thanks to Virbdhadra Singh, Union Minister of Cabinet for Steel. While planning this special issue on Nehru’s modern temples, we came up with a late idea of going to Rourkela, where the Nehru vision was fused with German engineering to create Rourkela Steel Plant, a key member of the Steel Authority of India (SAIL) family. A request sent to the minister’s office was processed as fast as you take to download a song from iTunes. And I had the opportunity of going to some places which most analysts and pundits talking and writing about SAIL and Rourkela Steel Plant usually tend to forget or ignore.
For me personally, it was the nth visit to the steel city, having gone there often during my school and college days in the 1970s and 80s when the word ‘Public Sector’ was something small town middle class Indians desperately wanted to be part of. Going down a mine shaft is a heady as well as scary experience; and you cannot avoid mines when you talk about steel. But more intriguing for me was a visit to a small place called Purunapani; a town, a hamlet, a desolate outpost of industrialization or harbinger of how public sector India is now rediscovering itself through strategic alliances with private sector companies and entrepreneurs.
“This mine was more than 60 metres deep. And limestone used to be sent from here to our plant and other places night and days”, says Jogeswar Badaik, Mines Manager, who is in charge of this outpost. Badaik is quintessentially middle class Indian; he has worked his way through to an office where he can press a buzzer that has a man come scurrying across to fetch tea and refreshments. He is worried about his child who is down with a flu; but he tells me confidently that the SAIL hospital in Rourkela can handle any problem. I am more interested in what were once upon a time mines that fed the industrial juggernaut in Rourkela.
This small story must start start with a big thanks to Virbdhadra Singh, Union Minister of Cabinet for Steel. While planning this special issue on Nehru’s modern temples, we came up with a late idea of going to Rourkela, where the Nehru vision was fused with German engineering to create Rourkela Steel Plant, a key member of the Steel Authority of India (SAIL) family. A request sent to the minister’s office was processed as fast as you take to download a song from iTunes. And I had the opportunity of going to some places which most analysts and pundits talking and writing about SAIL and Rourkela Steel Plant usually tend to forget or ignore.
For me personally, it was the nth visit to the steel city, having gone there often during my school and college days in the 1970s and 80s when the word ‘Public Sector’ was something small town middle class Indians desperately wanted to be part of. Going down a mine shaft is a heady as well as scary experience; and you cannot avoid mines when you talk about steel. But more intriguing for me was a visit to a small place called Purunapani; a town, a hamlet, a desolate outpost of industrialization or harbinger of how public sector India is now rediscovering itself through strategic alliances with private sector companies and entrepreneurs.
“This mine was more than 60 metres deep. And limestone used to be sent from here to our plant and other places night and days”, says Jogeswar Badaik, Mines Manager, who is in charge of this outpost. Badaik is quintessentially middle class Indian; he has worked his way through to an office where he can press a buzzer that has a man come scurrying across to fetch tea and refreshments. He is worried about his child who is down with a flu; but he tells me confidently that the SAIL hospital in Rourkela can handle any problem. I am more interested in what were once upon a time mines that fed the industrial juggernaut in Rourkela.
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of the Bhakra–Nangal project to the nation, he had said: “This dam has been built with the unrelenting toil of man for the benefit of mankind and, therefore, is worthy of worship.” However, there are many who are now questioning the Nehruvian model of development. The Narmada Bachao Andolan says the Narmada project will displace more than 200,000 people apart from damaging the fragile ecology of the region. In 1947, India had 300 large dams. By the year 2000, the number rose to over 4000, more than half of them built between 1971 and 1989. India is today ranked third in the world in dam building, after US and China. But can we do without that distinction? 
t source of inspiration was the fiery power of Imran Khan. In those days, I did not begrudge Pakistan its victories over India, as long as my hero had done well. There were times I wished I were Muslim, in the hope that a shared faith might result in shared ability. Since then, I’ve sought and found both warmth and love amongst Muslims, some of whom I count amongst my dearest friends. And yet...
sermon had received a favourable reception. Only, I was not convinced. And, perhaps noticing my uneasiness, the Arab approached me and launched forth in colloquial Arabic that I could barely comprehend. And it was no loss either – for his ideas interested me not one bit.
seeks to address Muslim extremism. Who else but the collection of states with the broadest mandate, most members, and loftiest goals could tackle this perversion of civilised society and threat to world order? So, when I was hired in January 2006 for a project to devise a United Nations response to the so-called clash of civilisations, it seemed to be a pretty worthy way to consider this challenge on a global scale. At the urging of the prime ministers of Spain and Turkey, the then Secretary-General of United Nations, Kofi Annan established the Alliance of Civilisations with the primary goal of identifying the roots of the divide between Western and Islamic societies and, ultimately, to find ways to curb religious violence.
gradually waking up to the realisation that they might finally lose their so-called long term competitive edge in the short term itself. This loss is primarily because of the Middle-East’s thorough incapability in encouraging youths to take up higher education and in boosting their entrepreneurial spirits in the new age era.
that sweet correlation – however much I personally might want to the contrary – does not apply to car purchases. And probably, this is the reason why many women, especially in India, are not seen driving cars [Of course metros are an exception; though even in these areas, purchase patterns of women are no relative matches to those of men]. As a matter of fact, there aren’t many cars that are manufactured exclusively for women in India. And if you’re a car manufacturer, about to tempestuously experiment with a plan for the fairer sex, perish the thought Jim, women in India more often than not take the back seat!
and marketing spends significantly. For instance, HUL increased its spending by almost 30%, and Britannia Industries Ltd. went up by 26.82%. N. V. Sivakumar, ED, Consumer & Industrial Products & Services, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) India says, “FMCG majors have been embarking upon increased print and TV campaigns in an effort to differentiate products, create brand awareness and increase brand recall.” Companies like Godrej are in fact doing it to the point of compromising on bottom lines in the near term. The most interesting case recently is that of GCPL, which increased its advertising spends by 44.65% on a y-o-y basis (it roped in Hrithik Roshan as brand ambassador for Cinthol), even as it recorded a y-o-y fall of 4.21% in net PAT for quarter-ended June 2008.
which are imprinted on the minds of every politically active Israeli. The first was a poster displaying the faces of two Israeli soldiers, captured by Hezbollah fighters during the Israel’s disastrous campaign of Lebanon in 2006; with Olmert proclaiming, “Thy children shall come again to their own border” in somewhat prophetic gesture. The second is a front page photo on Jerusalem Post with a visibly ashen Olmert puffing a cigar after the first round of interrogations related to graft charges. In a way, these pictures sum up his turbulent career too. Therefore, in the last few months, the incidence of an abortive end to his career was not a question of ‘if’ but ‘when’. Noted political expert from Israel, Gideon Doron told B&E, “For him, it was getting difficult to dispense his duties. Even if the graft charges are baseless, he’ll have to fight it out till eternity. You simply can't rule after you lose your base of legitimacy.”