Hoganekkal's Bete Noire
The man who was responsible for Tamil Nadu putting on hold the Rs 1343
Hoganekkal project to supply drinking water to Krishnagiri and Dharmapuri
districts is taking over as Karnataka's chief minister tomorrow. M Karunanidhi,
who celebrates his 84th birthday on June 3, can hardly expect B S Yeddyurappa to
give him a gift and put the project back on track. With Yeddyurappa, creating
enough noise after visiting Hogannekal on the eve of the Karnataka elections
that had the two neighbouring states at daggers drawn, it seems unlikely that he
will backtrack and serve up the project on a platter.
Karunanidhi, like most poll pundits, did not factor in the BJP coming up
trumps for the first time in the south. He assumed that the Congress would win,
S M Krishna would be CM and it would be business as usual on the project for
which his son M K Stalin, local administration minister, went to Japan and got
the funding for the project from the Japan Bank for International Co-operation.
Karunanidhi, stung as much by the BJP coming to power in Karnataka as the
question marks over the project, says the project will go according to the
blueprint drawn up. He says, by July the project management consultant will be
picked, by October the detailed project report and the bid documents will be
prepared and by December the tenders will be floated for implementing the
project. Optimism? One must remember with general elections due next year,
Yeddyurappa will have political compulsions and cannot green light this project
although Tamil Nadu's BJP president L Ganeshan describes him as a
"nationalist."
A Transit Point For Drugs
Ketamine used to be drug that found its way through Chennai's airport to South
East Asia (Malaysia in particular) but over the last one month, it's Heroin.
Ketamine is an anesthetic used for the treatment of pets and wild animals. Big
pharmaceutical companies outsource the production of Ketamine-based drugs to
smaller companies from where pilferage occurs. Over the last year, Directorate
of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) and customs official have seized nearly 300
kilogrammes being smuggled from Chennai to lucrative markets in South East Asia.
With the drug being 30 times more expensive outside than in India, the drug
mafia use couriers to smuggle Ketamine, generally concealed in consignments of
idly powder or maida.
But with Heroin, it's generally the false bottom of a suitcase or, as happened
with a 23-year-old Nigerian woman, the drug was ingested to be flushed out
later. On April 29, DRI officials arrested a 31-year-old Philipino woman,
Raechel Benito, and found 3 kg of heroin concealed in her suitcase. She had come
from Delhi and was bound for Kuala Lampur. On April 30, customs officials
arrested a 25-year-old Thai woman, Punsakon Patchaurut, and found 5 kg of Heroin
in the false bottom of her suitcase. She too had come from Delhi and was Kuala
Lumpur-bound. On May 23, another Philipino woman, Fernanda Darek Riano(29), was
arrested by Customs officials and 2 kg of heroin was found on her. Her route was
the same -- Delhi to Kuala Lumpur. The latest -- May 28 -- is 23-year-old
Nigerian Rehemamuyanja Namuyanja who had 1.5 kg of heroin with her. She too came
from Delhi but was headed for Colombo. The other difference was that her
Nigerian handlers made her swallow 30 capsules of the drug -- 10 gm each of
Heroin was put in a polythene cover and then wrapped in a condom -- and 900
grams of it was found in her rectum.
Time To Let The Dogs Out
Incidentally, in the aforementioned smuggling cases, the scanners at the airport
had waved all three suitcases of the two Philipinos and Thai women and it was
only their suspicious movements that led to a second check leading to their
arrest. The problem is that the scanners are manned by untrained personnel
deputed by various airlines. Requests to the Bureau of Civil Aviation to give
trained staff to operate scanners have not worked.
Customs officials have now put up a proposal to get two sniffer dogs to catch
drug traffickers. At Mumbai and New Delhi there are a total of seven dogs to
sniff out drugs and even explosives. "Sniffer dogs at the airport or
railway stations always act as a deterrent for anti-social elements. The Customs
wants to send the message loud and clear to smugglers that they should stop
operations from Chennai," says C Rajan, Commissioner of Customs (Airport).
It seems clear from the recent frequent seizures that drug smugglers do find the
Chennai airport porous or they would not be sending their couriers through it.
Rajan says, "We have written a letter to the Commissioner, Directorate of
Logistics, New Delhi, functioning under the Ministry of Finance, to provide two
sniffer dogs for Chennai airport to stop the smuggling of Ketamine Hydrochloride
and other drugs," he says.
One of the dogs will be used at the airport while the other will be on duty at
the air cargo complex and courier terminal. Since many couriers seem to be
passing unnoticed through security check, this is where they are going to be
greeted by the sniffer dogs.
Who Dares Wins
This is the feel good story of J Shalini who triumphed -- with a whopping 83 per
cent -- in her Class X exam of the CBSE although she was hobbled in an accident
on her way to the exam centre on March 5. As she and her father neared the
centre, a courier van crashed into their bike leaving her father badly injured
and Shalini with a broken leg. While her father was rushed to hospital, Shalini
went to the school determined to write the Tamil exam despite the excruciating
pain.
She was allowed to take the exam lying down with A I Nigazh acting as her
scribe. She had to overcome the grogginess brought on by the pain killers but
she found that Nigazh "wrote very well and her pace suited me."
Right after the exam, Shalini went in for surgery and took the rest of the
papers from her wheelchair. Her leg still has to heal but while she says that
she had wanted to get over 90 per cent, she is still happy with her result.