cuddalore online information

After Clinton it is Federer now. Number 1 ranked player Roger Federer visited Cuddalore on December 22nd, as UN Goodwill Ambassador. He was in Cuddalore for 2 days visiting various tsunami affected villages in the district, met children in government-run orphanage, and played cricket with children from tsunami affected village.

In the following posts I will add links to news articles which as reported in various media and add full text from the reputed sources.

Tsunami-hit still in make-do shelters - The Hindu

Pain captured thru’ pictures - News Today

Cuddalore: A Bhopal in Chennai’s backyard in New Kerala, Telugu Portal and RxPG News Westchester,CA,USA.

Tatas may acquire 26% stake in Nagarjuna refinery for Rs 400cr - The Economic Times

Increased salinity, rare fish in Bay of Bengal - The New Indian Express
Monday December 18 2006

CUDDALORE: The salinity in the Bay of Bengal has shot up alarmingly, almost equivalent to that of the Dead Sea post tsunami, according to a study conducted by Plus One students of a private school.

In the chemical composition of soil saturation extracts, concentration of sodium and bicarbonates was found higher. The pH value has increased from 5.8 to 8.40 in the wake of tsunami, which struck the coast on December 26, 2004. Besides this the electrical conductivity has also risen from 3.9 to 4.60 dsm.

Another observation of the students is that the normal colour of the sea has changed from sky blue to black. According to the students, it may be due to the presence of archebacteria, under-ocean bacteria, and other liquid secreted by fish. Rocky ocean surface has become shallow. Another finding is that the Bay of Bengal has become an abode of rare and new fish species; marine species, normally found in Pacific Ocean and other oceans, were found in the Bay of Bengal.

A fish - plataxteira, usually found at a depth of 3 metres below the surface of sea water, has moved to the Bay from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands; they are new to the Coromandel coast. A number of invertebrates - crustaceans, molluscans, worms and algae were also found at the Pudumandabam coast.

Similarly, puffer fish, found around Australian coast, red crab, ornamental fish varieties - parrot fish, angel fish, clown fish and butterfly fish- were found in the sea bed. The number of seer fish (Vanjaram), promfet fish (vawal), murrel (virral), flat fish (nakku meen) and flying fish (kola meen) has decreased.

As part of the research, the students travelled more than 100 km along the coastline and contacted more than 400 fishermen.

The research paper, ‘Changes in aquatic life after tsunami in the coastal areas of Tamil Nadu’ by five students of Krishnasamy Memorial Matriculation Higher Secondary School, was selected for a State-level Children Science Congress. Biology students - K Susidar, R Yugadev, K Dinakaran and Mohamed Salim- presented the copy to District Collector Gagandeep Singh Bedi. Correspondent Dr K Rajendran, principal R Natarajan and teacher Shanthi Pandian were also present on the occasion.

The study was carried out by Plus One students of a private school in Cuddalore.

Kammianpet shows visible development within a year of completion of the link bridge connecting Semandalam. There are abundance vacant spaces in this area which can very well be utilised for various public buildings and for the commercial development of the town.

This place is easily accessible from many parts of the town which makes it suitable site for public buildings and government offices. This is a potential place for the proposed Integrated Courts Complex and an Integrated Offices Complex. An Integrated Offices Complex may help shift the offices functioning in rented buildings. It would be a great relief for various departments which pays huge sum as rent.

The development of the locality must be planned and a design layout must be drafted out to guide the development. The place is also suitable for bringing up commercial establishments. Government can even come up with a multistoryed market similar to the one proposed for Erode.

As a first step to increase the more activity along this stretch, ‘Share Auto’ service and the bus service must be introduced.

A long sighted initiative must be taken for traffic planning. Necessary land must be acquired and reserved along the road and railway routes, before the value of the land sores up.

As the value of the land rises encroachments becomes an major issue. Real estate owners tries to make most of the land: their own land and the public land. Already some of them have illegally occupied the river bank with help of corrupt officials. This illegal occupation is done along the south west corner of the bridge, which is shown in photo. Note: The photograph was taken several months back, now the place looks completely different.

A distant view of Kammianpet-Semandalam bridge as seen from the land which was recently converted into plots.

The river bund road connecting Jawan’s Bhavan and Kammianpet has further increased the land value. This was a dreamproject for decades. The inaccessible part of the town is about to get a good access. De-congesting the roads is the direct reason behind the project, but the resulting development along is this stretch will be unimaginable. A similar bund road from Kammianpet and Padirikuppam would nurture the ongoing developement process. Though it may not be economically viable to carry out such a project at this stage, keeping the river bank safe from illegal occupiers is vital.

Note: The above photos were taken several months back

Related links:

Gedilam bank to be raised - The Hindu

Bridge across Gedilam coming up: Bedi - The Hindu

Chennai. 4 December, 2006 — Organisers of the Cuddalore to Chennai environmental awareness cycle tour have suspended the tour after one of the cyclists died in an untoward incident near Tindivanam on 30 November, 2006. K. Gurubalan, a student of Loyola College, who was part of the youth team that cycled in solidarity with the pollution impacted community in Cuddalore, accidentally drowned in a village pond during a rest stop about 18 km from Tindivanam.

Gurubalan

The cycle tour had covered more than 100 kilometres and had departed from Pondicherry on 30 November morning. “Gurubalan is a particularly sensitive young man, who was deeply affected by the horrendous environmental condition in SIPCOT Cuddalore. Even while conveying our deepest condolences to his parents, we wish to remind people that he died while on a tour to fight for justice for pollution-impacted communities. His spirit and sense of justice will keep our fighting spirit alive,” said SIPCOT Area Community Environmental Monitors (SACEM), a community group comprising Cuddalore villagers trained in environmental monitoring.

During an interview with a TV station a day before the incident, Gurubalan had expressed his intention to support the Cuddalore community’s campaign against pollution by reaching out to more youngsters in Chennai.

“Being the kind of person he is, Guru would not have wanted his death to put the brakes on such an important environmental tour for justice. For sure, more youth from Chennai will rally around and join the cycle tour for Cuddalore as and when it resumes,” said Guru’s friend Anushka Meenakshi who was also one of the cyclists.

Cuddalore is a toxic hotspot, where existing industries have made life unlivable. Rather than mitigate pollution, the Government is planning to target Cuddalore residents with more and more polluting industries. Currently, the villagers are fighting a desperate battle to prevent the setting up of a PVC plastic factory by Chemplast Sanmar in Semmankuppam village. A 4000 MW thermal power plant, several textile dyeing industries, a 6 million tonnes per annum oil refinery and two schemes to pump toxic effluents from textile dyeing and leather tannery units are part of the industrial plans for Cuddalore.

Organisers and participants of the cycle tour have resolved that they will resume the cycle tour in January. In the interim, they plan to organize a first-aid training for youth and activists in Chennai. On 16 December, a seminar on “Ongoing Human Rights Violations in SIPCOT Cuddalore” will be held at the Madras Institute of Development Studies. On the same day, all cyclists and their supporters from Chennai will meet to discuss plans for resuming the cycle awareness tour, and strengthen the struggles for environmental justice in Cuddalore, Mettur and other pollution-impacted communities.

For more information, contact: Nityanand Jayaraman. 9444082401

International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal; The Other Media; Cuddalore District Consumer Protection Organisation, Youth for Social Change, SIPCOT Area Community Environmental Monitoring, DEPORT.

42A, 1st Floor, 5th Avenue, Besant Nagar, Chennai 600090

http://www.sipcotcuddalore.com/

The following image links contains audio files from BBC Tamil service which reported about the Clinton’s Cuddalore visit. Please use the ‘Download’ option in the leading page. ‘Listen’ option may not work.

News headlines:

Actual news:

Florida can learn from Cuddalore: Clinton - The Times of India

Clinton visits tsunami hit hamlet in TN - The Hindu

Clinton asks Lanka and LTTE to choose politics over violence - Zee news

Clinton to make final visit to tsunami-affected countries as U.N. envoy - The International Herald Tribune

Clinton asks Lanka and LTTE to choose politics over violence - Zee News

Clinton to visit tsunami affected areas in Dec - The Times of India (published prior to the visit)

Clinton cosies up to Chennai - The Hindu

Clinton lauds India’s tsunami relief efforts - IndiaMuslims.info

TN a model for tsunami rehab: Clinton - ChennaiOnline

Bill Clinton praises India’s tsunami rehabilitation works - New Kerala

Bill Clinton Lauds Tsunami Relief Efforts - The News is NowPublic

New & Just In-Clinton Visits TamilNadu - BuckleUpNow

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, second from right, stands amidst puppets controlled by tsunami affected children at a rebuilt school at Thazanguda in Cuddalore district, around 165 kilometers (103 miles) south of Chennai, India, Friday, Dec. 1, 2006. Hundreds of villagers lined the streets of a coastal hamlet in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu Friday as Clinton, the top U.N. envoy for the tsunami recovery effort, visited homes built to replace those washed away by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The tsunami destroyed nearly 130 homes in Thazanguda, leaving many of the fishing community’s 2,600 residents homeless. (AP Photo/ M.Lakshman)

Clinton visits tsunami-hit area - BBC News

Former US President Bill Clinton has visited the region of southern India worst hit by the 2004 tsunami.

Mr Clinton, a UN special envoy for tsunami relief, visited new
homes and a school for tsunami victims in Cuddalore in Tamil Nadu state.

He also visited a cyclone shelter with a newly installed warning system and witness a mock drill.

The tsunami killed more than 6,000 people in the area and affected at least 200,000.

Mr Clinton is also due to visit Thailand and Indonesia, where the tsunami killed tens of thousands of people during his final visit to the tsunami affected areas as an UN envoy, a statement issued by his office said.

Mr Clinton had visited the region last May and met with survivors.

On Monday, the ex-US president announced to make HIV/Aids treatment cheaper for children at a function in the Indian capital, Delhi.

“I will never forget your story all my life,” he had told a tsunami survivor in the area during his last visit.

Clinton wants the Cuddalore model replicated elsewhere - The Hindu
Ramya Kannan

All praise for the town’s post-tsunami reconstruction and rehabilitation effort

CUDDALORE: It was in the shade of a neem tree at the Panchayat Union Middle School in Thazhanguda, a fishing village in Cuddalore, that the future disaster management policy of the United Nations was discussed on a hot Friday morning.

Former U.S. President and United Nations Special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery Bill Clinton cited the model the small town had adopted for post-tsunami reconstruction and rehabilitation and wanted it to be replicated not only in other tsunami-hit areas but also the rest of the world. “I want to figure out how to make this part of the UN strategy for future disasters.”

“This is a good model for economic diversification and housing construction, not only for places devastated by natural disaster but also where poor people have substandard housing and not much economic opportunity. What is being done here, I would like to see copied throughout the world,” Mr. Clinton reiterated during his last trip to India as Special Envoy.

He lauded the speedy pace at which houses were built for each family that had lost its home while ensuring that education, water and sanitation standards were on par with the mandate he had set.

He said housing was very important and also “the hardest thing to do.” In other places, only about 30 per cent of the homes had been replaced. Even in Florida, a year after the hurricane rendered several thousands homeless, people were still living in tents. In Cuddalore, even those not affected by the tsunami but identified as “vulnerable” had been given houses.

He commended the efforts to provide alternative livelihood for those who had suffered multiple losses during the tsunami.

Mr. Clinton, who turned out in a formal blazer worn over a blue t-shirt, also dwelt on the warning system that had come up in the area. Cuddalore could be proud that it had covered the “last mile” in early warning systems and disaster preparedness.

Commending Collector Gagandeep Singh Bedi for leading the recovery and rehabilitation effort right through, he said behind the success story was an “unusual partnership - national funding and regional leadership under this good man here.” A combination of government, NGO and private contractor partnership had helped “build back better.”

In two hours, Mr. Clinton visited the house of Mayilvail, a fisherman, in the newly reconstructed shelters (by the TANFAC Janseva Trust), interacted with students of the Panchayat Union Middle School in Thazhanguda and witnessed a mock disaster-preparedness drill.

Characteristically, he broke protocol to reach out, touch and interact with the locals who had gathered in droves to see him.