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Civil society, Sterlite protest
Article:
- Shiv Visvanathan, an academic associated with the Compost Heap, emphasized the role of civil society aftermaths Thoothukudi violence in Tamil Nadu.
Important Analysis:
- Issues involved:
- Recently in Thoothukudi, the police shot down 13 people who were agitating against the Vedanta owned Sterlite Copper plant.
- It was in 1994 that Sterlite Copper had come to Tamil Nadu after it was virtually chased away by local communities from Goa, Gujarat, and Maharashtra.
- Local groups had expressed fears about the impact of pollution due to copper plant.
- About Thoothukudi:
- Thoothukudi, also known by its name Tuticorin, is a port city in Thoothukudi district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
- According to Confederation of Indian Industry, Thoothukudi has the second highest Human Development Index in Tamil Nadu next to Chennai.
- Importance of civil society:
- Civil society reports carry a wider burden and responsibility.
- A civil society report on an act of violence has to related law and order to law and justice, and also to law and democracy, reflecting on knowledge and truth in new ways.
- The event suggests the importance of a people’s ombudsman to accompany so-called expert committees.
- Thoothukudi has to be treated as an early warning system for the emerging threats to Indian democracy.
- Author wishes for a proactive citizen whose knowledge must been seen as central to democracy.
- Toothukudi event reminded one of what the sociologist Emile Durkheim said in his classic Professional Ethics and Civil Morals, that only the ethics of professions like law and medicine can counter the rapacity of corporations and the emptiness of the state.
