60,000 Volunteers Descend on Kerala's Kuttanad for First-of-Its-Kind Clean-Up, Ministers Join In
Alappuzha, August 28: It’s not often that one sees Kerala’s khadar-clad ministers rack up their mundus, roll up their sleeves and get down to some thorough scrubbing. But the flood-ravaged state has forced every resident, including political leaders, to hit the streets.
In one of the biggest cleaning missions following a natural calamity in India, more than 60,000 volunteers from all walks of life have descended on Kuttanad in Alappuzha district.
When Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan was asked how he would tackle the massive challenge of rebuilding the state, he had said, “We will all simply get down to it. Homeowners can’t do it themselves, can they?”
When residents on Tuesday saw PWD minister G Sudhakaran cleaning soiled floors, they knew the state administration had delivered its promise. In fact, ministers from other states have also arrived in Kuttanad for the drive.
PWD minister Sudhakaran takes part in the operation. (News18)
Clean-up underway at Chakkulath Temple. (Aishwarya Kumar/News18.com)
A road near Chakkulath Temple after the clean-up. (Aishwarya Kumar/News18.com)
The army of volunteers, including ministers, electricians, plumbers, snake catchers, bureaucrats and others, will camp for the next three days in the town, the first area to be hit by the floods that have killed more than 300 people.
Although, volunteers have been working round the clock in places like Ernakulam to clean homes, the focus turned to South only when the Kuttanad clean-up campaign kicked off.
SUCI and PICCOS volunteers during the clean-up at Neeretapuram in Kuttanad on Tuesday. (Aishwarya Kumar/News18.com)
The operation is being controlled from SDV School in Alappuzha, where district officials are busy directing teams of volunteers. An action plan had been put in place on Monday evening when the administration had convened a meeting under collector S Suhas.
Sudhakaran, the tough talking, poetry writing and former lawyer, took the lead in directing the clean-up operations at the home of a farmer.
We asked him how it felt to get down to brass tacks. Pat came the reply, “Am I not an ordinary person? I am from this land. I know every field, every path in this place. I am not like some central ministers who talk about Kerala sitting in Delhi. If you are a minister, you have to get your hands dirty… help the people.”
At the finishing point of the Nehru Trophy Boat Race on Punnamada lake, a massive operation is also on simultaneously to send relief material to areas which are still inaccessible by road.
Hundreds of boats are being loaded under the supervision of Kerala Finance Minister Thomas Isaac. Isaac told News18, “90 per cent of volunteers who had registered online for this campaign, have now reached Kuttanad. Most of them are students and young professionals. We are hoping to bring in more volunteers from across the state and outside.”
Tipper lorries, once seen as bane of Kerala roads, played a heroic role in rescue work last week as flood victims were bundled into these tall behemoths and rushed out of inundated areas.
Today, they have been pressed into service to ferry volunteers back to the same areas to do the cleaning work. The Kerala Fire Force is actively at work with their high pressure water jets to do the initial cleaning. Cleaning activities in each area is being supervised by panchayats secretaries or officials.
Once the cleaning teams are done with their work, engineering students roped in by the Kerala State Electricity Board visit the houses to check wiring and connections. Health department volunteers are on roving duty to identify areas which could pose epidemic hazards.
The district administration has arranged accommodation for these volunteers, many of them on houseboats which usually accommodate tourists. They are also being issued with preventive medicines, to ensure that small cuts and bruises don’t turn infectious.
The cleaning operation has been given an impetus by the August 30 deadline for relief camps to move out of schools which re-open the next day. The state government is hoping that it can send home at least 1.5 lakh of the 2 lakh camp residents in this timeframe. The challenge is huge, as people of 226 wards in 16 panchayats need to be rehabilitated. Many still don’t have road access.
The state government says that it will take at least two weeks to bring Kuttanad back to its feet. Therefore, the 3-day operation is just a tip of the iceberg. Finance Minister Isaac has revised the estimated investment needed to rebuild Kerala to at least Rs 1 lakh crore.
A sizable chunk of this (if the state is ever able to raise such a huge amount) will need to be earmarked for Kuttanad where the Haritha Keralam Mission for wetland revival is already pending. The challenge is no longer to revive agriculture, but to rebuild roads and buildings too.
Courtesy: www.news18.com
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US SC rejects 26/11 attack accused Tahawwur Rana’s plea seeking stay on his extradition to India
New York, Apr 7 (PTI): The US Supreme Court has rejected 26/11 Mumbai terror attack accused Tahawwur Rana's appeal seeking a stay on his extradition to India, moving him closer to being handed over to Indian authorities to face justice.
Rana, 64, a Canadian national of Pakistani origin, is currently lodged at a metropolitan detention centre in Los Angeles.
He is known to be associated with Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley, one of the main conspirators of the 26/11 attacks. Headley conducted a recce of Mumbai before the attacks by posing as an employee of Rana’s immigration consultancy.
Rana had submitted an ‘Emergency Application For Stay Pending Litigation of Petition For Writ of Habeas Corpus' on February 27, 2025, with Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and Circuit Justice for the Ninth Circuit Elena Kagan.
Kagan had denied the application earlier last month.
Rana had then renewed his ‘Emergency Application for Stay Pending Litigation of Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus previously addressed to Justice Kagan’, and requested that the renewed application be directed to US Chief Justice John Roberts.
An order on the Supreme Court website noted that Rana's renewed application had been “distributed for Conference” on April 4 and the “application” has been “referred to the Court.”
A notice on the Supreme Court website Monday said that “Application denied by the Court.”
Rana was convicted in the US of one count of conspiracy to provide material support to the terrorist plot in Denmark and one count of providing material support to Pakistan-based terrorist organisation Lashker-e-Taiba which was responsible for the attacks in Mumbai.
New York-based Indian-American attorney Ravi Batra had told PTI that Rana had made his application to the Supreme Court to prevent extradition, which Justice Kagan denied on March 6. The application was then submitted before Roberts, “who has shared it with the Court to conference so as to harness the entire Court’s view.”
The Supreme Court justices are Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Elena Kagan, Associate Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, Associate Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
In his emergency application, Rana had sought a stay of his extradition and surrender to India pending litigation (including exhaustion of all appeals) on the merits of his February 13.
In that petition, Rana argued that his extradition to India violates US law and the UN Convention Against Torture "because there are substantial grounds for believing that, if extradited to India, the petitioner will be in danger of being subjected to torture."
"The likelihood of torture in this case is even higher though as petitioner faces acute risk as a Muslim of Pakistani origin charged in the Mumbai attacks,” the application said.
The application also said that his “severe medical conditions” render extradition to Indian detention facilities a “de facto" death sentence in this case.
The US Supreme Court denied Rana's petition for a writ of certiorari relating to his original habeas petition on January 21. The application notes that on that same day, newly-confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio had met with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Washington on February 12 to meet with Trump, Rana’s counsel received a letter from the Department of State, stating that “on February 11, 2025, the Secretary of State decided to authorise” Rana’s "surrender to India,” pursuant to the “Extradition Treaty between the United States and India”.
Rana’s Counsel requested from the State Department the complete administrative record on which Secretary Rubio based his decision to authorize Rana’s surrender to India.
The Counsel also requested immediate information of any commitment the United States has obtained from India with respect to Rana’s treatment. “The government declined to provide any information in response to these requests,” the application said.
It added that given Rana’s underlying health conditions and the State Department’s findings regarding the treatment of prisoners, it is very likely “Rana will not survive long enough to be tried in India".
During a joint press conference with Prime Minister Modi in the White House in February, President Donald Trump announced that his administration has approved the extradition of "very evil" Rana, wanted by Indian law enforcement agencies for his role in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, "to face justice in India”.
A total of 166 people, including six Americans, were killed in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks in which 10 Pakistani terrorists laid a more than 60-hour siege, attacking and killing people at iconic and vital locations in Mumbai.
