Weather fails to register on poll radar

Kochi: The green activists are  bitter that the mainstream political parties in Kerala are keeping an Ostrich-like attitude to ecological issues despite the state facing back-to-back natural disasters.

Kerala, which was hit by one of the worst floods in a century in August last, is now facing an unprecedented heat wave with most places experiencing  temperatures 2-3 degrees Celsius above the normal.  

“It is a pity that the precarious ecological situation in  the state has been ignored by the major parties,” said V. Sreedhar of the Thiruvanan-thapuram-based Thanal, an activist group. Sreedhar, who played a major role in preparing a green development agenda for the state before the Assembly elections in 2016, said that in the Parliament elections,  the “so- called” national issues dominate the agenda while ecological concerns are pushed to the margins.

He said political parties were not showing any sincerity and commitment  towards ecological issues.  They have a cavalier attitude towards protecting paddyland, wetland and hills, he said.

The ecological concerns are important in the background of the floods and the ongoing summer, said G. Gopinathan, convener of the development cell of the Kerala Sasthra Sahitya Parishad in Ernakulam district. Though he conceded that the issues needed to be highlighted, the KSSP was not planning any programmes to bring them to the forefront of the campaign, Gopinathan said. Green activists are furious that the LDF government has been pursuing policies that will have a destructive impact on the state. The watering down of the provisions of Kerala Paddy and Wetland Conservation Act and permission for quarrying in vulnerable areas are some of the measures opposed by the activist groups. The government authorities and mainstream political parties discredit any genuine protests against projects threatening the  ecology, they added.