Untreated sewage discharged into canal irrigating 12,762 acres: Farmers in TN'S Thoothukudi
THOOTHUKUDI: Farmers raised strong concerns over pollution of the Melakal canal and demanded reforms in water distribution from the Thamirabarani river during the agriculture grievance redressal meeting held in the district on Thursday.
The meeting, chaired by District Revenue Officer (DRO) A Ravichandran, was attended by officials from the agriculture, revenue, and other departments.
P Arumuganainar, a farmer from V Kovilpathu near Seithunganallur, complained that civic bodies in Vittilapuram, V Kovilpathu, Seithunganallur, and other villages under Karungulam union were discharging untreated wastewater directly into the Melakal canal. This canal, branching off from the Maruthur anaicut on the Thamirabarani river, irrigates over 12,762 acres through 17 system tanks.
He alleged that Karungulam union authorities had constructed drain canals that led straight into the Melakal canal, contaminating the water and resulting in weed growth, livestock diseases, and health hazards for the local population.
When questioned by DRO Ravichandran, Karungulam union officials admitted that the drain canals were indeed connected up to the junction of the streets and canal. They informed the administration that plans are underway to construct soak pits to prevent wastewater from mixing with irrigation water.
Meanwhile, Maharaj Paldurai, a farmer from Sathankulam, demanded that the district administration ensure surplus water from the Thamirabarani river be diverted to the Sadayaneri flood carrier canal. He criticised the current system, claiming that surplus water is being directed to system tanks, sidelining arid areas such as Udangudi and Sathankulam.
Citing a G.O from 1985, Paldurai pointed out that six tanks, including Vellamadamkulam, Udayarkulam, Muthalaikulam, and Velarikaiyoorani, were granted access to the Sadayaneri canal. He argued that this allocation was unjust and called for the scrapping of the GO, stressing that system tanks should be filled progressively through their respective channels as per traditional British-era practices.
The Sadayaneri canal, constructed in 1973, carries floodwater from Kalvai tank to the Sadayaneri tank in Udangudi union. It was further extended to Puthantharuvai in 1991.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Indian Express
29 minutes ago
- Indian Express
‘I told them you lock me from outside, I'll lock from inside. They stopped': Morarji Desai on his jail time
When veteran freedom fighter Morarji Desai was detained from his home at 4 am on June 26, 1975, and brought to the Sohna tourist centre at 6 am, the 81-year-old took a vow: 'I made the decision not to take cooked food any more. Ever since, I have lived only on milk and fruits.' The police had come to detain him first at 2.30 am, but left to return at 4 am because they were told he was asleep. The previous evening, he had addressed a rally at Ramlila Maidan in Delhi and had sensed something was wrong because of a large police deployment. Desai was brought to the tourist centre at the same time as Jayaprakash Narayan, he recalled in his autobiography The Story Of My Life, and put up in adjacent suites with two living rooms with attached bathrooms. Desai, who said the policemen were courteous and polite, recalled that he had packed just two pairs of clothes, a spinning wheel, and a few other things, including two or three books, for what would be a long detention without trial. 'In the beginning, my room was not locked from the outside; nor did I lock it from the inside. After two or three days, I found it was locked from outside. I told them that if they continued to lock from the outside, I would lock it from the inside. They stopped doing so,' Desai wrote. For two days, Desai was not supplied with newspapers. When he threatened to not eat anymore if newspapers weren't provided, the veteran leader was given papers. 'On reading the newspapers, I came to know about the press censorship which was much stricter than those of British days. During the British regime, newspapers could publish the names of the arrested and the jails in which they were lodged,' he reminisced. 'When I read news reports which were patently untrue I did not become agitated because I knew that those were inspired by their debased nature and temperament, and that they were motivated by fear. Yet, some periodicals preferred to close rather than succumb to the pressure of the Government. This gave great hope to the country.' 'I also got a copy of the booklet 'Why Emergency?', which was circulated by the Government. It was a tissue of lies. How else could they have justified their evil steps?' he said. 'My faith in God's laws asserting themselves and justice prevailing eventually is invincible. God's justice would prevail at the proper time.' When he said he wanted permission to resume his walks, Desai was told he could do so after 7.30 pm. He refused, saying he wasn't a thief to walk in the dark, and discontinued his walks for a month. Desai recalled waking up at 4 am each day, and when shifted to Taoru, again in Haryana, on July 30, 1975, he used to get up at 3 am, offer prayers, recite the Gita, perform Padmasana for one hour, walk for one hour, spin yarn, drink cow's milk and eat fruits for breakfast and lunch, go on an evening walk, and have an evening meal of fruits and milk. He also read the Ram Charita Manas, provided to him by a policeman, multiple times. 'Reading the newspapers between the lines I discerned the havoc wrought on our people through fear. This trait has been inherent in our countrymen for several centuries. I was deeply upset. Our land has suffered from fear for 13 centuries, ever since we were invaded and became subject. But at no time in our history was fear so pervasive and intense as in Smt. Gandhi's time. I came to know about the excesses committed in the name of family planning from the policemen on duty at Taoru. I learnt about the riots in the nearby villages.' 'In the winter months they gave me a sweater also. I was also given a pair of shoes at Taoru. I asked for razor blades, but not for shaving soap, since I use soap only to wash my hands. One cake of soap lasted me for more than a year. On Ekadashi days when I fasted, they gave me sugarcane juice once a day. They provided me with an air-conditioner at Taoru, but power failures were frequent. On one or two occasions the air-conditioner failed for 15 days at a stretch. The police officers suggested that I sleep in the open. I preferred to remain inside since sleeping outside would have inconvenienced them,' Desai wrote. Desai said he would walk till the beginning of the road, but a policeman told him he could walk on the road too. 'I told him that if his superiors came to know about it, he would lose his job,' he cautioned. When the police officers were not able to keep pace with him during his walks, Desai once remarked, 'Who appointed you a police officer?'' Villagers, Desai recalled, would greet him with 'Ram Ram' and he would respond with the same greeting. Desai wrote that the policemen privately told him they wanted to see him as Prime Minister and when Desai said he was too old for it, they would say, 'Age does not matter; you are very active. God willing, it will happen.' 'After I was released I saw the people's fear lessen. They were beginning to regain their courage. This helps explain the historic victory of the Janata Party during the March 1977 elections,' he said. Desai did not recall his days in detention with bitterness. 'These 19 months of detention were the most beneficial period of my life. This is why I publicly thank Smt. Gandhi for it. I have no doubt that my detention was the will of God. Smt. Gandhi was His instrument. Therefore, there is no question of my blaming her,' he wrote in his book. 'During the detention I lived introspectively. How could I improve myself? What about the blemishes within? Was there tension? Did I dislike anybody? I also searched within to analyse my feelings towards Smt. Indira Gandhi. I realised that I did harbour some resentment against her. But the very act of realisation freed me of such feelings. Since then I have not harboured a dislike for anybody.' 'During my former (occasions of) imprisonment, I always had several people with me. That provided me with an opportunity to study human nature, because in jail people shed all hypocrisy… During this detention, I could travel within without interference. Such a journey kept me free from all worry; even about the conditions prevailing in the country. However, that did not mean that I was not concerned about things outside; but such concern did not disturb the inner peace,' he wrote. The Janata Party defeated the Congress in the March 1977 elections and, as the policemen purportedly wished, Desai went on to become Prime Minister.
Time of India
38 minutes ago
- Time of India
Amazon to invest £40 billion in UK over 3 years: govt
Online retail giant Amazon will invest £40 billion ($54 billion) in the UK over the next three years, the government said Tuesday, a boost for Prime Minister Keir Starmer as he struggles to kickstart the who met Amazon CEO Andy Jassy last week, said the announcement "adds another major win to Britain's basket and is a massive vote of confidence in the UK as the best place to do business."It means thousands of new jobs -- real opportunities for people in every corner of the country to build careers, learn new skills, and support their families."Whether it's cutting-edge AI or same-day delivery, this deal shows that our Plan for Change is working -- bringing in investment, driving growth, and putting more money in people's pockets," he added. The £40 billion will be used to build four distribution centres, creating an estimated 4,000 jobs, and to renovate the historic Bray Film Studios, acquired in July 2024. In December, Amazon signed an agreement with Games Workshop, the British company that owns the rights to "Warhammer 40,000", to produce films and TV series based on the futuristic fantasy universe. The project is set to star Henry Cavill, known for his roles in in "Superman" and "The Witcher". The investment also includes part of the £8 billion previously announced in September 2024 for building, operating and maintaining data centres in the UK, aimed at boosting artificial intelligence (AI) computer capacity. The announcement coincides with the publication of the government's "Modern Industrial Strategy", which outlines how the state and high-growth industries will collaborate in the future. 'Right track' It offers a rare piece of good news for the Labour government, which has been buffeted by US tariffs and global conflicts and seen its domestic policy of tax hikes and public investment fail to deliver on its promise of growth. Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds will visit Amazon's headquarters in London on Tuesday to mark the announcement. "Our Modern Industrial Strategy will ensure the UK is the best country to invest and do business, and seeing massive international firms like Amazon bank on Britain shows we are on the right track," he said. Amazon already employs more than 75,000 people in over 100 sites across the UK. Jassy said the company was "bringing innovation and job creation to communities throughout England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. "Amazon has been proud to serve our customers in the UK for the past 27 years. Thanks to their support, we've grown to be part of over 100 communities nationwide, from developing drone technology in Darlington to producing world-class entertainment at our studios in Bray," he added. Jassy announced last February that Amazon would invest more than $100 billion this year, primarily to boost its cloud and AI capabilities. Australia was the focus last week, when the US firm announced $13.3 billion over five years for its data centres, the largest technology investment ever made in the country. In June, Amazon also announced major investments in North Carolina ($10 billion) and Pennsylvania ($20 billion), again for data centres and AI projects. Amazon is currently under investigation by the UK Food Regulator, suspected of late payments to food suppliers. If found guilty, Amazon could be fined up to one percent of its annual UK turnover.
The Wire
3 hours ago
- The Wire
Tridib Kumar Chaudhuri, a Freedom-Fighter-Turned-MP Par Excellence
Chaudhuri was elected to the Lok Sabha from the Berhampore constituency in West Bengal for seven consecutive terms and was a member of the Lower House from 1952 to 1984. Later, he became a member of the Rajya Sabha in July 1987 and again in August 1993. Tridib Kumar Chaudhuri. Tridib Kumar Chaudhuri was a freedom fighter, parliamentarian par excellence and legendary revolutionary socialist leader. He spent about 12 years in British jails and 19 months in Portuguese jails during the liberation struggles. As an member of parliament for more than four decades, he symbolised the golden era of Indian parliamentary politics. He was also a gifted orator and a prolific writer. He distinguished himself in the nation's life with his single-minded devotion to the service of the country. Chaudhuri was born on December 13, 1911 in Dacca (now in Bangladesh). He studied in Murshidabad and Berhampore. His adolescent years and early youth coincided with the outburst of the anti-imperialist, nationalist mass movement in India of the 1920s and 1930s in the shape of the non-cooperation and civil disobedience movements. Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty. He was arrested in 1931 and kept in detention in the Hijli Detention Camp in the Midnapur district of Bengal near Kharagpur and then in the Deoli Detention Camp in Rajasthan up to 1937. Soon after this, in 1940, Chaudhuri and several other leaders of the newly-formed Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) and the Anushilan Marxists were arrested. He was detained under the Defence of India Rules by the British government, with Subhas Chandra Bose. The main charge against them was that they supported Bose's anti-war and immediate-action line against the British government. Chaudhuri was kept in detention as a security prisoner in the Hijli Special Jail and in the Dacca and Dum Dum Central Jails for six years during War time from 1940 to 1946. The years of detention in the late 1930s were a period of re-education and ideological transformation for revolutionaries. Most of them, including Chaudhuri, came back after years of study and prolonged political discussion as convinced socialists and Marxist-Leninists believing in class struggle and mass action. Chaudhuri played a prominent role in the formation of the RSP. After Independence, he built up the RSP, as the party's general secretary. According toChaudhuri, Lenin's well-known dictum, "Without a revolutionary theory there cannot be a revolutionary party", also implies logically that "Without a revolutionary party there can be no revolutionary theory." He was of the opinion that in the India of the day, the correct revolutionary theory can only be a theory of proletarian socialist revolution as a prelude to the socialist transformation of India's socio-economic structure that had become historically urgent and unavoidable for socio-economic reasons. A distinguished parliamentarian Chaudhuri was elected to the Lok Sabha from the Berhampore constituency in West Bengal for seven consecutive terms and was a member of the Lower House from 1952 to 1984. Later, he became a member of the Rajya Sabha in July 1987 and again in August 1993 till his death on December 21, 1997. He was the leader of the RSP in parliament. During his tenure as a member of the first Lok Sabha, Chaudhuri participated in the Liberation Satyagraha Movement against Portuguese colonialism in Goa. He entered Goa in July 1955 with a batch of volunteers and was arrested and sentenced by the Portuguese authorities for 12 years. He was, however, released after 19 months of imprisonment, just on the eve of the second election to the Lok Sabha in 1957. Then prime minister and Congress president Jawaharlal Nehru, describing Chaudhuri as a 'National Hero', decided not to put up any Congress candidate against him in his constituency. In 1974, during his fifth term in parliament, Chaudhuri was unitedly put up as a candidate for the office of the president of India against Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed by a majority of the opposition parties. Though he lost the election, the contest attracted a good deal of admiration from the political public on account of the dignified way in which it was conducted. During the Emergency, he acted as a spokesman of parties opposed to the Emergency. Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty Chaudhuri's speeches in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha on a large number of national and international issues throw light on his thorough grasp of a range of subjects, his analytical power, his grassroots understanding and his extraordinary high oratorical skill. He was a champion of the toiling millions and an ardent defender of the downtrodden and the oppressed. In fact, he fought for broadening the democratic rights and liberties of the people and all along he challenged and fought against any encroachment on them. He was also very active during the Question Hour in Parliament. He raised questions on subjects like unemployment, shortage of food, issues relating to employees of the tea industry, jute mills, workers' rights, foreign policy, agriculture policy, etc. Chaudhuri was also a master of all parliamentary techniques and forms, and he used all the possible openings – special mentions, calling attentions, half-an-hour discussions, adjournment motions, etc. – to put across his points of view on varied issues. He also spoke time and again about the plight of the people in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), and stressed their democratic and human rights and the need for India to mobilise world public opinion about it. An eminent trade union leader A close friend and champion of workers, labourers, peasantry, youth and students, Chaudhuri was associated with various trade unions and their welfare organisations. He held senior positions in the United Trade Union Congress (UTUC), which was the trade union wing of the RSP. Chaudhuri made his mark as a prolific writer as well. He was the editor of the RSP's theoretical publication, Call. His memoirs on the Goa Satyagraha in Bengali, Nineteen Months in Salazar's Prison, evoked a good deal of popular interest in the late 1950s when it was first published. Along with Nihar Ranjan Roy, he was the joint editor of the well-known Bengali literary-cultural monthly Kranti for several years. He also penned several political and polemical tracts expounding the RSP's points of view on the issues of the times. As general secretary of the RSP for more than three decades, he wrote two brochures: 'Why RSP?' (Historic Need for a Party of Socialist Revolution in India Today) in 1970 and 'Four and Half Decades of the RSP' in 1985. Chaudhuri died on December 21, 1997 at the age of 86 when he was a member of Rajya Sabha and the leader of the RSP in the parliament. Qurban Ali is a trilingual journalist who has covered some of modern India's major political, social and economic developments. He has a keen interest in India's freedom struggle and is now documenting the history of the socialist movement in the country. The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.
