Mumbai: Tata Nano today got a new entrant to its ever growing opposition list. After “Singur” Mamata Banerjee, “Go Green” Environmentalists and “Sleeping” Indian infrastructure planners now mothers of would-be Grooms are raising in protest against the cheapest car.

India is known as a great market for bride grooms. Even in this internet age Indian bride families are looted all their life savings in broad day light in name of marriages. Gold, two wheeler, cars, and cash… you name it they will be in the list of dowry demands from prospective Groom’s family. Their demand list at times makes even Kandahar Airplane hijackers look pious. Now this demanding group got challenged from an unexpected source - Indian corporate power house - Tata’s.

Tata had come up with world’s cheapest car - Nano which costs around 1 Lakh INR. So people may question why it concerns few mothers in India. The reason being - they initiated marriage process with car as one of the items in their dowry demand list. But what they haven’t anticipated is Brides family can achieve this demand with INR 1 Lakh.

Kaveriamma(54) from Bangalore was visibly agitated. She complained, “Last year we fixed the marriage of our elder son – Raghu, a Lawyer by Profession. As customary we demanded a car. The bride family gave a Maruti… Maruti some name (She can’t remember model) which was around 3 Lakh rupees. But this year when we fixed alliance for younger one Raj, a Doctor by Profession the bride’s family got away by giving this 1 Lakh Rupees car (Nano). I don’t know what to do.” (Reader should also note in India’s thriving matrimonial market selling price of Doctor Bride Grooms were quite higher than Lawyer ones.)

Story is same in every part of India. North, East, West and South - Mayawati Sharma’s, Mamata Chatterjee’s, Sonia Modi’s and VijayaPradha’s - aspiring for Maruthi’s, Toyotas, Fords and Honda’s for their sons need to settle for this 1 Lakh worth Nano.

But few sections of the society - Groom’s family were quite happy. Rajendran(64) father of two teen age girls said, “with the introduction of Nano, I got the dowry expenses cut by half. I convey my sincere thanks to Mr.Tata”.

Reading the pulse of Nano effect, India’s most progressive political party Samajwadi Party have promised to enact a law to ensure that minimum price of car to be given as dowry should be at least 3 Lakh Rupees.

Ahmedabad: Cultural program held on side lines of Vibrant Gujarat Summit turned violent as supporters of Gujarat CM Narendra Modi and Congress union minister Shankersinh Vaghela clashed over kite flying dispute, at science city.

The Government of Gujarat organized 4th Global Investors’ Summit on 12-13 January 2009. Aimed at bringing together business leaders, investors, corporations,  policy and opinion makers.

As a part of cultural events kite flying contest was held. The event was sponsored by “Surat Diamond traders association” and “Surat Gems and Jewels export council”. Its part of urban Gujarati tradition to fly kites on Makarsankranti day. So Chief Minister Narendra Modi started flying kite. Modi’s Saffron colored flag had “Lotus” symbol on it. The opposition Congress MLA’s present in the event objected saying, “CM Modi is using the summit to promote his party BJP instead of promoting state. How can he fly a saffron colored kite with his party symbol Lotus, in a high profile summit?”

Upon hearing this news, Congress union minister Shankersinh Vaghela reached “Ahmadabad Science city” with his supporters and started flying a kite having Sonia Gandhi picture on it. Foreign delegates were surprised by crowd’s frenzied cries like - “Sonia Zindabad”, “Advani Zindabad”, “Jaey Congress”, “Jaey BJP”.  Then all of a sudden Narendra Modi skillfully cut down Vagela’s kite. Immediately the BJP supporters erupted in cheer shouting - “Long Live Ram, Down Down Rome”. Congress Legislators infuriated by the insult to their leader started clashing with BJP supporters. Soon the clashes spread across the city. Some sensitive areas like Maninagar witnessed large scale violence.

Later in the day, Gujarat cabinet convened by Modi asked Union Government to send armed forces to maintain law and order in Gujarat. This is the first time in India history; military had been called in for a kite flying contest.

Speaking to news persons at Chennai, Y S Rajasekhara Reddy(YSR) suggested B Ramalinga Raju should be made India’s finance minister, as country needs a full time finance minister(currently Manmohan Singh - Official Prime Minister of India is taking care of Finance ministry).

Recently, “Satyam” India’s fourth largest software services provider was in news for all wrong reasons. To top it all, came revelations from Satyam’s Chairman Ramalinga Raju’s stepping down letter to SEBI (Stock Exchange Board of India) which stated, “profits in the company were inflated over the years, leading to wide gap between real and imaginary assets”. India Inc and media are shocked by these revelations.

But YSR is of different opinion. He confidently said, “Last year India’s Sensex was around 21,000 points and economy was growing at a healthy rate of 8.9%. But this year share market is reeling less than 9,000 points and economy growth rate is mere 6.8%. How to overcome this gloomy scenario and influx cash flow? Our country really need some one with excellent track record of tailoring audit reports and performs shadowy corporate governance. I can’t think of a person better than Ramalingam Raju.” Many Andhra Pradesh politicians endorsed his views.

Praja Rajyam Party leader, Chiranjeevi (Chiru) , speaking at a road show in Nellore  said, “If Ramalinga Raju is willing to become finance minister he can. If he is not willing he can’t” in a conclusive tone he is famous for.

Though differing with YSR on every issue, TDP supreme and former CM, Chandrababu Naidu too had supported YSR’s proposal. However Telengana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) leader K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) made his support only conditional saying that, “TRS will support Ramalinga Raju only if he accepts Separate Telengana”.

Speaking on this latest development, Satyam’s spokes woman at Hyderabad said, “Satyam chairman is humbled by the trust of political leaders and is willing to take up the finance minister position if a request directly comes from Prime Minister”.