The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Visakhapatnam News : What's the buzz about fizz?

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jul 20, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Visakhapatnam

What's the buzz about fizz?

Remember the cola wars between the multinational giants? While one virtually painted the city blue, the other dipped it in red. Then came the talk of pesticide in cola bottles and the clashing titans realised their corporate responsibility!

Instead of fighting among themselves, they targeted their ire at the research findings. They spent thousands of crores of rupees on publicity to revive the faith of consumers in their brands. Public memory is short and the cola majors utilised it to their advantage and soon got back the faith of their clientele.

There are instances of foreign substances being found in cola bottles and the stock answer of dealers is: "Please give the bottle back to us, we will return it to the company.'' The foreign bodies normally found in cola bottle include metal and wooden objects.

Jayasri, an elderly woman suffering from low blood pressure, has been admitted to the Port Golden Jubilee Hospital at Salagramapuram. The other day she sought aerated water, and her son, Rajesh Srinivas, promptly went to the nearby shopping complex and purchased a bottle of soda water marketed by an MNC.

When the bottle was opened and Jayasri took a sip from it, she vomited. A closer look at the contents revealed a rusted metal cap inside the bottle. When Srinivas went to the dealer, he expressed helplessness.

The company would no doubt replace the bottle but what would be the fate of the consumer and his/her family if something untoward happens? It is here that the MNCs need to realise their social responsibility and make joint efforts to safeguard the lives of consumers.

* * *

It is surprising that the tragic fire accident in a school at Kumbakonam in Tamil Nadu has not spurred Government authorities or voluntary organisations into any campaign against similar hell-holes in Vizag that pass off as educational institutions.

Given that primary education makes for good business---with hardly any qualification or permission required from any authority---schools are springing up everywhere, unchecked and unregulated, be it in their sheer physical spread or educational standards. Streets are chock-a-block with schools, located in commercial complexes alongside shops and establishments and making no bones about their business intentions and just about any place that yields some room, blatantly throwing every safety norm to the air.

If the Kumbakonam incident has alerted one to the danger of schools operating in makeshift premises---optimising every inch of available space to cram in classrooms with thatched, wooden and asbestos roofs---then scores of children in the city are sitting on a powder keg.

* * *

Information technology has not taken a beating as some people fear and, in fact, is growing at a fair clip.

Dispelling the misconception about taking the IT course in engineering colleges, the principal of the Gayatri Vidya Parishad College of Engineering and former professor in structural engineering at IIT-Madras, P.S. Rao, noted that seven years ago everybody who underwent even a two-week course in computers got classified as an IT programmer.

The stigma that goes with IT applies only to them and not in the case of those taking the four-year IT engineering course, he clarified and said that the latter continue to get lucrative jobs at home and abroad.

* * *

What do you present to a guest at a function? Greet them with a bouquet, don't you? But the Visakhapatnam chapter of the Indian Concrete Institute and the Builders Association of India have set a new trend worth emulation by others.

Why waste money on flowers, which wither away? Instead, say hello with pots carrying flower plants so that they will bloom forever. Wonderful idea. Not only going by the cost-benefit analysis, the two institutes also want that they could give something to cherish their bondage with their esteemed guests by presenting them saplings in mud-filled pots.

At a recent meeting organised in connection with the Dr.K.L. Rao Day, the persons who deal with drawings, concrete and cement greeted the former MLA, K. Haribabu, and other guests with flower vases.

By B. Madhu Gopal, Shakeel M. Rasheed, B. Prabhakara Sarma and Santosh Patnaik

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What's the buzz about fizz?