This was not something that the Kozhikode district administration had bargained for. When convening a meeting of persons representing the fields of theatre and art and culture, their objective was to see how best they could conduct the national theatre festival that is to take place in the city in February. However, what they heard instead was a litany of complaints about the conduct of the last festival.
From not playing the perfect host to being measly in funds allocation, the grouses started tumbling out one after the other. District Collector C. Latha and the Department of Information and Public Relations could only sit through it all with a smile on their faces. For among those present was Minister for Panchayats and Social Welfare M.K. Muneer who represents the city in the Assembly.
When the floor was open to express views, one of the invitees pointed out that last time, a troupe from the Northeast was not even honoured for its participation. The troupe would have gone back with a bad image of the host, he lamented. There were many such slips, he said.
Another invitee said funds crunch had led to some embarrassing moments. “Will we burn our fingers this time also,” he asked. To this, an official said adequate funds would not be an issue.
Initially, the Collector looked amused by some of the grouses. With more of these surfacing, and that too in the presence of presspersons, she quickly brought the curtain down on the meeting, stating that issues could be discussed in detail later.
Kozhikode is already hosting the 55th State School Arts Festival. It will also be one of the venues for the National Games. With the theatre festival also lined up — in close succession — the administration is wary of the flak it might have to face if pitfalls are not avoided.
A recent order from the Kerala Coastal Zone Management Authority (KCZMA) to close down Kozhikode’s famed Sarovaram Bio-park citing environmental reasons was a bolt from the blue for both the district administration and the District Tourism Promotion Council (DTPC).
This is the first time that the KCZMA, which functions under the direct control of the Kerala State Council for Science, Technology and Environment (KSCSTE), has found that the park, under operation for several years, was constructed in violation of environment protection rules.
The Collector and the DTPC Secretary were taken aback on getting the order, which was based on a petition submitted by an environmental activist from the city nearly four years ago. The order stipulated that they must remove all the tourism amenities constructed at the site investing the local development fund of people’s representatives.
Officials are now trying to get legal advice on how to tackle the situation.
Architects associated with the construction work have already started some groundwork to support the district administration and the DTPC. Some were heard wondering how the KCZMA expected the district administration to go by its diktat when many of its previous orders against unlawful constructions on the coastline of the city never got implemented.
About 60 personnel of Thunderbolts, the commando force of Kerala Police, currently camping at Attappady had a tough time last week when rumours spread that a suspected woman Maoist cadre had taken refuge in one of the tribal hamlets for giving birth.
The intelligence wing of the police, which received ‘secret information’ about the delivery, told the Thunderbolts squad that the woman was part of a Maoist team that had vandalised the forest range office at Mukkali in Silent Valley in December last week.
Hamlets located deep inside forests were searched, and officials interrogated a number of tribal people accusing them of providing help to the Maoist woman for a safe delivery. The Maoist cadre, the police said, was accompanied by another woman with radical affiliations.
The combing operations continued for six days, but in vain. Though there was no trace of the women or the baby, the police continued to claim that the Maoist cadre had indeed reached one of the hamlets and that they could not be traced only because they kept moving from one hamlet to another.
With none to back their side of the story, the tribal people could only bear the ordeal of repeated searches in their hamlets.
