Tata fat cats banning turtle computer game?

This Greenpeace video says about itself:

TATA is releasing the world’s cheapest car. It’s also driving turtles to extinction. Sign the letter here: http://www.greenpeace.org/turtles

From daily The Guardian in Britain:

Tata to sue Greenpeace over turtle game

Indian manufacturing giant is suing for use of its logo in a spoof computer game highlighting port’s threat to local wildlife

* Adam Vaughan
* Monday 26 July 2010 17.13 BST

The Indian manufacturing giant Tata is suing Greenpeace India over a computer game it has created to publicise the alleged impact on turtles from the company’s development of a new port.

The Pac-Man-style game is defamatory and an abuse of copyright, Tata Sons, Tata companies’ bulk shareholder, said on Friday at the New Delhi high court. The court has served notice to Greenpeace, which has until tomorrow to respond to the lawsuit.

Greenpeace India launched the game at the start of June, the latest step in its seven-year campaign against Dhamra port, which is due to open this summer at Bhadrak in Orissa, a state on India’s eastern coast. The environmental group alleges that the development will endanger local turtles. Turtle Vs. Tata, which is still live online and has been played by nearly 25,000 people, places a turtle in the role of Pac-Man battling against Tata logos in the place of ghosts.

Tata is a huge international conglomerate with revenues of $70.8bn in 2008-09. It owns Jaguar Land Rover and the steel company Corus in the UK.

…

Areeba Hamid, oceans campaigner at Greenpeace India, told the Guardian the case had no merit either on grounds of copyright infringement or defamation. She added they will not change the game unless the court directs them to.

Ashish Fernandes, oceans campaigner for Greenpeace India, said: “This is a desperate attempt to stifle the growing criticism over their port project, and divert attention from the real issue of the impact it will have on a biodiversity-rich area. Public opinion is on the side of the turtles – over 150,000 Indians, leading scientists and turtle biologists, politicians and national NGOs have come out against the port. By first ignoring and now trying to silence these voices, Tata has shown that it cares only about its bottom line, and not the environment.”

Tata Steel is jointly developing the new port in a 50:50 project with L&T, another Indian conglomerate. …

Greenpeace has been campaigning against the port since 2003. The group says the developers’ environmental impact assessment report was flawed. It describes the site as “ecologically sensitive”, noting that it is 5km from India’s second largest mangrove forest, the Bhitarkanika Sanctuary, and less than 15km from Gahirmatha nesting beaches, the world’s largest mass nesting site for Olive Ridley turtles. Hamid added the NGOS was also concerned about a white-bellied snake and a frog that a 2007 Greenpeace assessment of the site found were the first recorded instances of the species on the Indian mainland. The case begins tomorrow.

Health and safety campaigners have demanded that company directors be held personally accountable for “serial killing workers” after yet another employee was killed at a Corus steelworks: here.

A petition signed by over 30,000 people against a planned mine expansion in India will be delivered to the mining company on Wednesday: here.

Action Aid and Amnesty International have dismissed attempts by British mining firm Vedanta to play down its alleged pollution and human rights abuses in India before its AGM in London: here.

British transnational Vedanta Resources has been told by India’s environment ministry to immediately halt all construction work on its aluminium refinery in the Indian state of Orissa: here.

Loads of amazing turtle images and films: here.