Bangalore 365

Volvo Bus Corporation’s (VBC) new bus-manufacturing plant in Hoskote will be inaugurated on Thursday by its President, Hakan Karlsson. Volvo Bus Body Technologies India Pvt. Ltd, a joint venture between VBC and Jaico Automobiles, is implementing the project. While VBC holds a 70 per cent stake in the joint venture company, the balance is held by Jaico.

The plant, with an annual capacity of 1,000 buses annually, will roll out 450 buses in 2008, of which about 250 are already booked, according to the Managing director of the joint venture, Akash Passey.

“We are sold out for the next six months,” said Mr. Passey.

Mr. Karlsson said the Indian facility would be a “sourcing hub” for the Asian market. He said Volvo had adopted a mix of strategies to address the transportation needs of the Indian market. In the truck segment, it has a tie-up with the Eicher Group; its acquisition last year of Ingersoll-Rand’s construction equipment division gave it a global presence in that segment as well; and, the joint venture with Jaico now enables the company to have a presence in the “quality bus” segment.

The President said the company wanted to participate in the development of public transport.

Mr. Karlsson said the company’s buses, initially plying inter-city routes, are now a feature of public transport in cities such as Bangalore, Chennai and Pune. Volvo, he said, was an important player in the Indian bus market, whose annual demand was about 25,000 buses.

The new plant, which became ready for production in ten months, was “one of the most modern in the Asian region.” Source: Hindu

Dragonair, the sister airline of Cathay Pacific Airways, is scheduled to launch its India operations, with daily flights to Bangalore, starting May 1, 2008. The Hong Kong-based company has got the requisite permission to operate 30 flights to India, including 23 by Cathay Pacific and the rest by Dragonair. 

Cathay Pacific on Wednesday announced it would soon launch a service to Chennai and significantly increase the number of its flights to the national capital and Mumbai.

In addition, its sister airline Dragonair would launch a daily flight between Hong Kong and Bangalore from May 1, using an Airbus A 330-300 aircraft.

From early June, the airline would operate a total of 23 new flights, including enhancing its Delhi operations to double dailies and introducing four flights a week to Chennai.

The extra flights to Mumbai would also operate to Dubai, a Cathay spokesperson said.

For the world’s cheapest car, it was one luxury arrival.

More than 1,000 people — journalists, VIPS and industrialists — packed an auditorium on Thursday as Tata Motors Ltd unveiled its long-awaited “People’s Car” in a media circus more worthy of a pop concert or an Oscar ceremony.

For those wanting to feel India’s economic self-confidence as it takes on the world, all they had to do was to experience the blaring music from “2001: A Space Odyssey” and the flashes of scores of cameras as the Tata Nano was driven out.

It condensed years of anticipation into one moment of mayhem.

“I haven’t seen this many cameras in my six years in South Asia,” said one veteran journalist. “You couldn’t even buy advertising like this.”

Ahead of the launch, major news channels devoted several minutes of airtime to live footage of a dark and empty stage where the car, a hatchback that is priced at about half the cost of the current cheapest car, would be unveiled.

“A promise is a promise,” Chairman Ratan Tata said, as he announced a dealer price of 100,000 rupees ($2,500) as pledged five years ago, even though commodity prices have gone up and despite rivals’ claims such a knock-down price was impossible.

For its supporters, it will revolutionise ownership in India, by allowing millions of the aspiring middle classes to own a car, and send a shock through the auto world with its cheaper engineering that will be copied across the globe.

For its detractors, it will provoke a nightmare on India’s already clogged roads and worsen choking pollution levels.

“CUTE” FIRST IMPRESSION

As Tata reeled off the car’s specifications and compared it to innovations such as the first man on the moon, people in the crowd, including many Indian journalists, clapped and cheered.

A hologram appeared of a husband, his wife and kid balanced unsafely on a scooter — a common sight in India. It faded to make way for an image of the Nano hovering above the stage.

Then came the rush as hundreds of journalists pressed around the car. A ring of Tata guards surrounded the Nano, begging cameramen not to scratch its new paint.

Then came the public.

“It looks kind of cute,” said Urvashi Sitani, a businesswoman who took pictures with her mobile phone. “I’d guess it proves popular with the younger crowd. But it’s a girlish car. I can’t imagine a man would be seen in a car like this.”

Thousands of people pressed around the car.

“It seems like a real car. The windows actually wind down,” said a smiling Gilles Levassor, who works for French carmaker Renault.

A few metres away, women protesting that farmers had been made landless because of Tata’s car factory plans, stood by.

“It’s subsidised by farmers’ blood,” said Anuradha Talwar.

Outside the auditorium, a contingent of Greenpeace activists stood with banners bearing slogans such as: “CUT CO2 emissions”.

But they were largely ignored by the swelling crowds.

On this day, the side of India that sees itself an upcoming economic superpower was apparently looking the other way. Source: Reuters.com