With more than 30,000 Tata Aces running on Indian roads, sold within a year of the launch of the one-tonne 4-wheel mini-truck, Tata Motors is facing a challenge of sorts on the capacity expansion front. To meet the expected demand from four southern states, Maharashtra and 4 other states, Tata Motors will set up a plant to exclusively manufacture the Ace in Uttaranchal.

The plant, to be ready by March 2007, will have a capacity of 2,00,000 vehicles per annum, and take up the total Ace production to 2,75,000 along with production from its Pune plant.

"Ramping up the capacity of the Tata Ace is of prime importance now. With the Uttaranchal plant expected to be commissioned in 2007, and the Pune unit gearing up for a capacity of 75,000 vehicles using three shifts from July-2006, things would be better," Mr Shyam Mani, vice-president (sales & marketing) of commercial vehicles told this newspaper on Friday. The Uttaranchal unit will reportedly entail an investment of Rs 2,000 crores-2,500 crores.

With the robust demand for Ace in the domestic market Tata Motors is only considering full-scale exports of the mini-truck only in 2008. At present, the Ace is sold in Sri Lanka but India’s biggest commercial vehicle maker is looking at Bangladesh, South Korea and Africa.

Another first for the Ace as a segment creator is the fact that almost all commercial vehicle majors such as M&M, Bajaj, Force Motors, Ashok Leyland and even car-major Hyundai are looking at introducing a product in the one-tonne segment. "We know other manufacturers are looking at entering the segment. Obviously, the market will grow but as long as we feel confident of delivering on value, we will be scoring. And finally, Tata Motors has the advantage of being the first-mover in the segment," Mr Mani said.

Tata Motors is now working on a CNG version of the Tata Ace and, according to Mr Mani, it would be launched "as soon as possible". Alternatively, feasibility tests are being done with LNG and green fuels such as jatropha for use in bigger commercial vehicles.

The next terror threat facing the United States is not a nuclear or gas attack but an electro-magnetic bomb or e-bomb — which would shut down telecommunications networks, disrupt power supplies, and destroy countless computers and electronic gadgets, yet still leave buildings, bridges and roads intact. This is according to Khalid Khawaja, a former Pakistani intelligence officer who once worked closely with Osama bin Laden. "The e-bomb shall be the new threat for the USA, not the nukes or gas attacks," said Mr Khawaja.

Mr Khawaja was a senior official of Pakistani secret service (ISI), when they were fuelling jihadi resistance movements against the Soviets in Afghanistan, and after being forced to retire from the Air Force, he went to Afghanistan and fought along side with Osama bin Laden. the leader of the Al Qaeda terrorist network.

Khawaja said that he overheard the reference to the e-bomb in several conversations among Arab fighters in Afghanistan over the years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001.

"I never heard Osama or Dr (Ayman al- Zawahiri) discuss a nuclear attack on the USA," he said "and neither did I hear that from any other person. To me, these kind of ideas are ridiculous. Only states can use nuclear technology to destroy any country."