one after another in an endless procession and with Jayalalithas death more than 2 years old and unable to command the same emotional upheaval it once could, the fate of the AIADMK in the 2019 LS election - and that of any party that may enter into an alliance with it - is as good as sealed !
After the almost certain rout it may face in 2019, the AIADMK may crumble shortly thereafter and leave a big vacuum for a range of entities - Rajnikanth, Kamalhasan, Congress, BJP, MDMK, etc - to try and fill it as much as possible !
The action against the protestors in the Sterlite expansion project would certainly prove to be another very big nail in the AIADMKs coffin !
Re: With troubles following
by Raja Krsnan on May 24, 2018 08:28 AM
Sterlite should shut down the plant and move to to some other state. that is the best way to go. it will cost them just a Rs.1000 crore loss or so which they can write off against the future profits. that is win-win for sterlite and loss-loss for people. I would have adopted this strategy.
AIADMK, DMK and other parties can go the cremeation ground or burial ground for their last rites. because its chinnamma and party that will come to power. rajni and kamal can be at the most comical characters in movies. they cannot bring in any change.
If the plant has operated over 20 yrs without any problem why the expansion has been opposed? There is something very wrong with the politicians who have handled this. The author has given a very biased writeup,not expected of Rediff.
Don't understand why the police had to shoot down protestors instead of using rubber bullets or tear gas shells as being done in J&K. The state government must be held responsible. Paying Rs 10Lakhs is not enough for the lives lost.
bottling plant came up at Plachimada in Kerala, in the midst of a village.
The villagers were happy that the land value in their village went up.
But, soon enough, they found that their wells, which had always been perennial with crystal clear water, were getting depleted.
They found out immediately that it was the Coca cola plant that was sucking up all the water for its multi stage filtration process and that it was dumping a small fraction of it back in the ground as filtrate (mineral and solid heavy water that was useless even for agriculture).
When the villagers demanded that Coca cola should either switch to alternate sources of water or make arrangements to supply them equally good water in adequate measure, the company chose to turn a deaf ear. Coca Cola was certain that it would get away with it as it routinely did with its plants elsewhere in India.
What Coca cola certainly did not bargain for was the way commoners in that non descript village responded !
They first sat in dharna at the gates of the plant and then approached the Kerala state pollution control board for redress. When the KSPCB responded like the TNSPCB has always done to residents around the Sterlite plant in Tamil Nadu, the villagers of Plachimada barged into the office of the DEE (district environmental engineer), hung a garland of slippers around his neck, doused his head in a bucket of coca cola and arranged for TV cameramen to record and broadcast all of it !
Following this, the save Plachimada campaign became a state wide movement and pressure mounted from numerous quarters on the state govt to revoke the Pollution clearance for the plant. The Kerala state govt finally acquiesced and Coca Cola picked themselves up lock, stock and barrel and left the state !
Within a couple of months after Coca Cola was driven out, the villagers of Plachimada got back the old water levels in their wells !
Re: Wrong heading
by Harish Manwani on May 23, 2018 06:08 PM
Yes, we will tell the company to dump the waste in your house. How insensitive can people get I wonder, sitting in some AC office and passing comments.
1. CASTE SHOULD BE LOOKED DOWN BY MAJORITY: Yadavs, Gujjars, Jats, Patidars, etc are not looked down castes, in fact, they are dominant castes who look down other castes.
2. THE CASTE SHOULD BE ECONOMICALLY POOR: Most of Yadavs, Gujjars, Jats, Patidars, etc are prosperous people with big properties with both accounted and unaccounted income, muscle-power and money-power.
3. THAT CASTE PEOPLE SHOULD BE EDUCATIONALLY BACKWARD: Visit their localities at 8 PM, you can see YadavMaadharChodhs, GujjarMaadharChodhs, JatMaadharChodhs, PatidarMaadharChodhs, etc sitting in gangs, drinking wwhisky, playing cards and yelling at the height of their voices: BanaChodh, MadaChodh, BehenKeLauda, BoseDK, etc whereas a Brahmin prefers to spend time on reading and studying at that time. If these criminals have low literacy, it is not due to poverty and lack of resources to study; it is because they spend their time drinking, playing cards, YellingAbuses, going to RedLight areas, etc. Same trend with over 70% OBCs. That is cultivated educational-backwardness because of wealth & arrogance. So obviously they cannot be called educationally backward to be eligible for OBC Reservns.
Limit reservations to Most Backward Castes (MBCs), remove the criminals & the wealthy like Yadavs, Gujjars, Jats, Patidars, Modis, Jaiswals, Kapus, etc from OBC lists. Reduce total reservns to 40% (SC 15%, ST 5%, MBCs 15%, FCs in BPL 5%), leaving 60% for merit
it is high time the government formulates a policy and sets up industries far away from residential areas.now the question is whether we need industries at the cost of the health of the citizens or not.which is bigger? the health of the people or survival of corporates.
