Kerala & the Dried Up Coke

Most of the keralites, like the rest of the Indians, would'nt hesitate to empty a coke bottle down their throats especially now in the summers. However the the relation between the "Coke People" and kerala has been uneasy.

First of all whats most unsettling was that the multinational cola giant was given the required permission to open a bottling plant in Palakkad (an Eastern kerala district and a bastion of communism) by none other than the communists themselves. What merit they saw in permitting the same by which they effectively broke their anti multinational and anti capitalistic stance , need to be questioned.

Then as the agitations began on account of the huge water consumptions by the coke plant leading to lowering of water table in the surrounding areas causing droughts etc, the government resumed their anti-multinational , anti-exploitation stance.

Also there were accusations of the coke being contaminated with pescticides (obviously that had to happen as the ground water itself had such contaminations, but then the multinationals should have purified the same as they had international standards to maintain)

After all these accusations , counter accusations , the company closing down etc - the kerala government is now claiming a loss of around Rs.200 crores and the committee of the local people are claiming damages of around Rs.4500 crore.

I have something to say here - "Please refer to the claims settled in case of a colossal tragedy like the Bhopal Gas Tragedy and then make the tall claims that you are making .It may be more worthwhile to make claims against the state government which granted the permission. After all can the permission givers be left scot free while penalising the permission seekers?"