Tata to produce hybrid Nano model in India

India’s Tata Group has announced plans to produce hybrid versions of its cheapest vehicle - the Nano - in its home market.

The Nano, which at 100,000 rupees (£1,306) for a basic model is the cheapest car in the world, first became available in India in July this year.

Ratan Tata, the chairman of both Tata Group and Tata Motors, India’s largest car producer, told the Maeil Business Newspaper in South Korea today that the firm now intends to produce a new vehicle that can run both on petrol or diesel and a battery.

He added that low-priced goods would continue to drive sales more quickly in India than high-cost goods, but the so-called price revolution would continue to spread across the world.

Tata’s move follows the announcement earlier this month by Carlos Ghosn, chief executive of both Renault and Nissan, that it had signed a deal with Indian partner Bajaj Auto to create a car able to trump any other, including the Nano, in terms of fuel efficiency by 2012 and market it in India.

‘Media a problem in India-Pakistan relations’

Hyderabad, Dec 1: Eminent Pakistani journalist Najam Sethi on Tuesday said media in both India and Pakistan is trapped in “narrow nationalism” and is part of the problem in relations between the two countries.

Speaking at the inaugural session of World Newspaper Congress after receiving the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) Golden Pen of Freedom award here, Sethi said the media in both the countries was too intensely nationalistic and had pushed them to the brink of war after last year’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai. “After Mumbai last year, both the media put on the war paint and pushed their governments to the brink of war,” said Sethi, the editor-in-chief of the Friday Times and the Daily Times.

Contending that media is part of a problem rather than solution in India-Pakistan relations, he gave instances of media stalling the peace dialogue at critical points. “In 1989 when the then Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi visited Pakistan, the Pakistani media stopped (the then Pakistan Prime Minister) Benazir Bhutto’s government from implementing the far-reaching cultural accords that were signed on that occasion. When Mr Gandhi went back, the Indian media stopped him from moving ahead on Siachen accord inked by the defence secretaries of the two countries in Pakistan,” he said.