Originally published 30 September 2013 on Unreal Times. Republished here since Unreal Times shut down
Chairman of Tata Motors, issued a statement to the press today on the appointment of Mr Ajay Maken as Chief Consultant for reducing the turning radius on the Tata Indica.
"If you have attempted a u-turn on the Tata Indica, you would know the challenge with the turning radius on the Tata Indica. We have been grappling with this challenge for several years now. To our surprise yesterday, Mr Ajay Maken of the Congress Party demonstrated an U-turn that is without doubt the best in the world. In a matter of minutes, Mr Maken, who was driving a government ordinance in one direction was able to turn around and drive it in exactly the opposite direction. We as a company believe we should access all of India’s expertise in solving our engineering challenges. So we spoke to Mr Maken this morning about advising us on the turning radius. We are quite delighted that he immediately accepted the challenge. In fact over the call he gave us a few pointers which our engineers have started exploring right away.”
The press was stunned with the announcement. There were questions from the press about how much time Mr Maken could commit to the endeavor and whether he has the engineering skills to deliver. Mr Mistry addressed these questions and reiterated that he was quite confident of Mr Maken’s abilities. Mr Mistry also highlighted how this was a great example of the industry and government working together to solve the nation’s problems.
If early reports from inside Tata Motors are to be believed, it appears one of Mr Maken’s first suggestions to address the turning radius problem was to appoint Mr Rahul Gandhi as CEO of Tata Motors (the CEO position at Tata Motors has been vacant for some time now). Mr Maken is supposed to have said, “If a Gandhi leads the organization, it is very easy for the company to do sharp turns, u-turns and turning the tables.”
Mr Maken was unavailable for comment. It is believed he is closeted with Mr Obama. Apparently the President of the United States wants a lesson on u-turns after his poor handling of the Syria U-turn recently.
