Guwahati:
Guwahati gets a Taj as the Tatas slowly make a comeback to one of their plantation states, well timed with the government readying itself for talks with the ULFA.
Some of the country's most successful business people are getting together to form the Assam Investment Advisory Board. Ratan Tata was also amongst them.
"So why are we here? We are here because we have been drawn to the opportunities and the potentials of the state..This is a new Assam here and most of us are committed to be here..Guwahati is changed and it's full of evidence of great development which I do not recall when I was here last", says Ratan Tata.
Since the allegations of Tata Tea paying up for medical treatment of ULFA's cultural secretary in Mumbai in 1997, the company was slowly scaling down its operations in Assam.
The tea industry ran into losses and suffered heavily from extortion demands by armed outfits.
But the company's senior executives who were in the midst of that controversy now seem to endorse the view that Assam is changing for the better.
R K Krishna Kumar: "If I wasn't confident I wouldn't be here today. This is a new Assam, I see a dramatic change."
Just as the government is planning to have talks with the militant outfit ULFA and create an impression of an improving law and order the Tatas are back in Assam trying to forget the bitter experience of the 90s when they had a situation with the ULFA which almost tarnished their clean corporate image.
Some of the country's most successful business people are getting together to form the Assam Investment Advisory Board. Ratan Tata was also amongst them.
"So why are we here? We are here because we have been drawn to the opportunities and the potentials of the state..This is a new Assam here and most of us are committed to be here..Guwahati is changed and it's full of evidence of great development which I do not recall when I was here last", says Ratan Tata.
Since the allegations of Tata Tea paying up for medical treatment of ULFA's cultural secretary in Mumbai in 1997, the company was slowly scaling down its operations in Assam.
The tea industry ran into losses and suffered heavily from extortion demands by armed outfits.
But the company's senior executives who were in the midst of that controversy now seem to endorse the view that Assam is changing for the better.
R K Krishna Kumar: "If I wasn't confident I wouldn't be here today. This is a new Assam, I see a dramatic change."
Just as the government is planning to have talks with the militant outfit ULFA and create an impression of an improving law and order the Tatas are back in Assam trying to forget the bitter experience of the 90s when they had a situation with the ULFA which almost tarnished their clean corporate image.
