Jayalalithaa plays dam peacemaker

Dec 10, 2011 |

chennai

Tags:

Continuing her peace effort, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa released full-page ads on Friday in all big newspapers, including five Malayalam ones, explaining why and how the retrofitted Mullaperiyar dam was “safe and as good as new”.

She appealed to the people of Kerala to not succumb to divisive forces spreading falsehood that the dam was a threat to lives and properties of the people in the region.

The chief minister explained that gravity dams — and Mullaperiyar is one — used their weight to resist water pressure and other external forces such as wave pressure and earthquakes to remain stable.

Recalling how Kerala had adopted a legislation in its Assembly to thwart a Supreme Court order of February 2006 permitting Tamil Nadu to raise the water level in the dam to 142 feet, she said there was a thinking that Kerala’s campaign to decommission the dam could be inspired by land-grabbers in that state, who could be worried that their resorts and other structures built on lands leased to Tamil Nadu would submerge if the water level was raised above 136 feet.

Kerala adopts new reservoir resolution

A one-day special session of the Kerala Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution on Thursday to replace the 116-year-old Mullaperiyar dam with a new one. The resolution moved by chief minister Oommen Chandy asks the Centre and the Kerala government to take steps to build a new dam.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/112198" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-3e4fcebd82b39beedc189b6c1bd60ca0" value="form-3e4fcebd82b39beedc189b6c1bd60ca0" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="87350672" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>