The Hindu : Kerala News : District notes

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Apr 08, 2004

Kerala

Kerala

District notes

Though the current bout of drought has put all sections of people in extreme hardships, one welcome relief has been the high environmental consciousness of the average Malayali these days.

As the Planning Board member, C.P. John, put it at the Kerala Institute of Local Administration (KILA), near here, recently, environmental protection is no more a mere issue of debate between intellectuals. The lush greenery and the feeling that the State is profusely surplus in water had put the environmentalists on the defensive once. But all that has changed. The intense summer heat of just one drought year has made people realise the importance of preserving trees, forests and other greeneries as well as the traditional water reserves. They are now more aware of the dangers of environmentally damaging activities like indiscriminate digging of borewells and the importance of traditional water conservation methods.

Traditional farming practices, based on judicious water management practices, are gaining currency at least in some areas. Some of the local bodies and several non-governmental organisations have now launched programmes to create awareness among the public on water conservation and other related environmental issues.

The State Government is reported to be planning such water conservation campaigns. But some of the environmentalists are worried whether all these would end as mere knee-jerk reactions to the present water shortage and the Malayalis would again turn a blind eye to the environmental issues once the State gets one or two good showers.

* * *

Are the events at the Ernakulam UDF candidate's campaign-launching on Wednesday an indication of things to come? The fisticuff between the `A' and `I' groups and the manhandling by Congress activists of a group of teachers from a city college where the UDF candidate, Edward A. Edezhath, teaches, marred the campaigning mood.

The meeting was scheduled for 10 a.m. at the Ernakulam Town Hall, but there was no one in the hall, though the senior Congress leaders, K. Karunakaran, Oommen Chandy and P.P. Thankachan, were scheduled to speak. Congress workers had started arriving after 10.30 a.m. and they were not in huge numbers.

In fact, a substantial section of the audience consisted of members and activists of the Church organisations with which Mr. Edezhat was involved and also the teachers and students from his college. (And, that was one of the reasons why the usual `Leader ki jai' was missing when Mr. Karunakaran arrived to open the meeting — they were not very familiar with the Congress ways.)

When the meeting was on, a pamphlet, said to have been prepared by Mr. Edezhath's colleagues, was distributed to the audience. A certain reference to the cheap politicking by politicians enraged the Congress activists.

They hauled up the teachers and tried to manhandle them. This clash inside the hall had erupted just when the clash outside had died down.

The dais was packed with a large number of district-level party leaders apart from the State-level ones, including Mr. Thankachan and Mr. Chandy. Clearly, none of them was in the mood to make an inspiring campaign speech.

(Contributed by

T. Ramavarman in Thrissur and K.P.M. Basheer in Kochi.)

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