Terror gets local support, so no houses for Muslims: Surat real estate agents

CLAIMING terror strikes like in Mumbai cannot take place without local support or contacts, Surat real estate agents and brokers have decided not to rent or sell houses to Muslims.

This decision was taken at a meeting last Sunday which was attended by some 300 real estate agents, many of whom responded to SMS invites. They initiated moves to form an association, hoping to complete the process before the month ends.

The Mumbai attacks prompted this meeting in Surat which was rocked by the discovery of bombs across the city after the July 26 serial blasts in Ahmedabad. After the bombs were discovered, activists of Hindu hardline groups had forced Muslims to vacate shops in the Varachha area of Surat — in Ahmedabad and Vadodara, Muslims find it very difficult to rent or buy houses and this has been their experience ever since the 2002 riots.

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Modi, Tata drive Nano to its new home in 4 days

The Tatas today announced they were shifting their Rs 1-lakh Nano car project to Sanand near Ahmedabad — this was first reported by The Indian Express — after a controversial stay in Singur in West Bengal. The Tatas, who quit Singur last Friday, said they would be investing Rs 2,000 crore and would go all out to meet the deadline for the world’s cheapest car, even if it meant turning to a makeshift plant.

A Tata Motors statement said it would explore the possibility of manufacturing Nano at its existing facilities in Pune and Pantnagar and would launch the car in the last quarter (January-March) of the financial year.

“This is an extremely momentous and happy day for us because we have been through a rather sad experience from a small quarter of residents of West Bengal despite the efforts of the state government,” Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata said at a joint press conference with Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

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IIMs get their reality check: those six-figure Wall Street salaries will have to wait

Over the weekend, as Lehman Brothers went bust, Merrill Lynch was sold and the world of global high finance shook, hearts broke on Kolkata’s IIM campus. For two students of IIM-C’s Class of 2009 who had accepted pre-placement offers only a couple of weeks ago, the immediate future was suddenly a void.

“We interned at Lehman’s London office only this summer. Work was as usual, no one had any idea that trade was declining,” one of them told The Indian Express.

The student could have been speaking for hundreds of fresh graduates at Indian Institutes of Management from Kolkata to Ahmedabad, Lucknow to Bangalore. Firms like Merrill and Lehman have been among the biggest recruiters on campus, and the investment banking and financial services sector has been setting the aspirational benchmark with offers of salaries that have ranged from $120,000 to $360,000 annually.

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