Tata Steel Invited Onto The Un's Global Compact Advisory Board.

Published by MAC on 2006-05-11

Tata Steel Invited onto the UN's Global Compact Advisory Board.

11th May 2006

The hubris of Tata is breathtaking. This is India's biggest private corporation and its most "globalised." In recent months, Ratan Tata has been elected to Chancellor Gordon Brown's innermost economic strategy committee in the UK, while the managing director of Tata Steel was invited by Kofi Annan onto the UN's Global Compact advisory board.

Tata Steel is owner of the Kalinganagar steel plant site in Orissa where twelve tribal persons were shot dead by police in January (another two have since died). And Tata is still falsely accusing "outsiders" of "taking advantage" of a desperate situation which was at least partly of the company's own making.

Now Posco, the world's third biggest steel producer - also greedy for India's cheap iron ore and even cheaper labour - has followed Tata's lead in making promises its not likely to keep.

Earlier this month allegations leaked out of Chhattisgarh state that the ash pond at NTPC's Korba thermal power plant had burst its bounds, drowning thirty or more people. We're still trying to get confirmation of this. Meanwhile, NTPC has cut back on its own captive coal mine plans.

India has been scouting the US looking for partners in the establishment of seven "ultra mega" (sic) coal-fired power plants. According to SiliconIndia (which describes itself as the "Business and Technology portal for the global Indian") GE (General Electric) and Caterpillar have expressed interest.