Colonos points out at Congress’ celebrity candidate Shashi Tharoor’s connection with a Coca-Cola funded organization and how it might impact his politics. The post also has a reply from Tharoor and the counter reply from India Resource Center.

“The very assumption of the report, in estimating the total groundwater availability in Chitoor block, that 20 per cent of the rainfall can be recharged is flawed as the Central Groundwater Board’s (CGWB) assessment in 2003 had put the recharge in areas such as Chitoor at 5-8 per cent. While the committee report put the annual recharge in the block at 74.1 million cubic meters (mcm), based on the CGWB’s scientific estimation of recharge rate it is only between 16.6 to 33.2 mcms. The report also suppresses the domestic and agricultural water needs. The central question in the High Court case was not as much about pollution and depletion of water resources, land pollution by heavy metals, or the right to life provision of the Constitution, as about the power of the local panchayat to ask for the closure of the factory. The Groundwater Dept, in a report on the groundwater of Palakkad dist prepared in 2006, presented an alarming picture of the state of groundwater in Chitoor block.”