I’m sitting opposite the large Coca-Cola bottling plant next to the village of Plachimada in the southern Indian state of Kerala. Plachimada is a farming village of about 800 families, many of them tribal. The ugly factory looks rather out of place in such a beautiful setting, the Western Ghats mountains clearly visible in the distance.
Some 245 Indian villages are in the middle of being destroyed by a $7 billion dam project that will consume more energy than it provides and has even been condemned by its World Bank sponsors.