Chinese fishing nets, dotting the backwaters of Kerala, have been a key component of Kerala’s tourism sales pitch, but the people whose forefathers gifted the concept of the fishing nets have never been part of Kerala’s tourism promotion plans.
Things appear to be changing now with a delegation from the State, led by Chief Secretary Jiji Thomson, mounting a big show at the Beijing International Tourism Expo (BITE) 2015, the premier travel and tourism fair in Asia, to woo Chinese tourists to Kerala.
When ‘Project China’ was first mooted, not many tourism planners and tour operators were convinced about its potential.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s push to grant ‘Visa on Arrival’ for Chinese tourists changed all that. And, leading the bid for a Chinese campaign was Mr. Thomson who joined Tourism Minister A.P. Anil Kumar and Tourism Secretary Kamala Vardhana Rao to promote the State as the next tourist destination for a sizeable section of the estimated 107 million Chinese tourists who peregrinate the globe annually.
Besides the fishing nets, there is much that links Kerala and China, like martial arts, medicine systems and even kitchen utensils, besides the ancient spice connection. The Chinese were a major presence in ancient Kerala’s trade.
Vinson. M. Paul, chief of the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB), is back in the spotlight again with his observation that there is no evidence to proceed against Finance Minister K.M. Mani in the bar licence bribery case.
Mr. Vinson had reached the conclusion that there is no evidence to prosecute the Finance Minister after consulting legal experts in the High Court as well as the Supreme Court.
However, the Opposition Left Democratic Front (LDF) is not convinced about the grounds on which he has taken the decision and Leader of the Opposition V.S. Achuthanandan has already declared that he will approach the courts against the VACB chief’s decision.
Over the past fortnight, the Opposition has been accusing Mr. Paul of playing for time in Mr. Mani’s case.
They had alleged that he was delaying action in the case to give a life-line to the ruling front in the spirited electoral battle for the Aruvikkara constituency. Mr. Paul, who is known to be taciturn, had not reacted to the Opposition’s allegations.
In fact, there was some surprise element in his decision, which began to be flashed by TV channels even as the polling in the by-election wound to a close.
It seems, demanding hefty fee for obtaining information under the Right to Information (RTI) Act is a good way to deter the public from making effective use of the law.
Recently, the Revenue Department demanded Rs.2,970 from an applicant who sought information on sand auditing conducted in the Kerala rivers, the first time that such an assessment has been carried out.
Though the applicant sought the information as a soft copy, the Public Information Officer and Under Secretary of the Revenue Department told the questioner that the report on the sand audit conducted in six rivers ran into 1,485 pages and could be had for a fee of Rs.2 a page.
The questioner was in for a surprise when he went in appeal. On his appeal, the Appellate Authority of the Department informed the applicant that sand auditing reports of 11 rivers were complete and the soft copy of the report was available with the Land Revenue Commissioner.
The authority also told the applicant that his application had been forwarded to the Land Revenue Commissioner for providing the soft copy, leaving the question why this was not done in the first place.
With inputs fromS. Anil Radhakrishnan and G. Anand (Thiruvananthapuram) andK.S. Sudhi (Kochi)
