"Metaphors are dangerous. Love begins with a metaphor. Which is to say, love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word into our poetic memory". How can I understand the sentences by Milan Kundera?

What drives the need for metaphors? Jorge Luis Borges says, 'Censorship is the mother of metaphors'.

Censorship, a tool of authority, especially totalitarian, enforces a no tolerance policy against criticism. How to express dissent in such circumstances? Find a more convoluted way. Enter the metaphor. Thus, writers use metaphors as tools to express dissent and other unfashionable notions when prevailing authority censors speech, a stark example of the many ways we use metaphors.

Simply put, metaphors are how we navigate through life. In the process, Kundera says, we end up submitting to their edict.  How? Kundera explores some of this process through Tomas and Tereza's love story in 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being'

An authority figure in our lives, love is or can be absolute. Unlike totalitarianism which imposes censorship externally, love imposes a state of mind that serves to self-censor, something Kundera describes as Tomas' poetic memory'.

Early on in Kundera's novel, Tomas casts his nascent feelings for Tereza in the metaphor of protector-dependent. Why? Because shortly after they meet, she falls sick while with him and he takes care of her. Kundera writes, 'He had come to feel an inexplicable love for this all but complete stranger; she seemed a child to him, a child someone had put in a bulrush basket daubed with pitch and sent downstream for Tomas to fetch at the riverbank of his bed'. This is how Tereza enters her first word in Tomas' poetic memory or how Tomas lets her, by letting the circumstance of her falling sick in his house, her transient incapacitation, her vulnerability, lower his defenses.

A little later still, 'Again it occurred to him that Tereza was a child put in a pitch-daubed bulrush basket and sent downstream. He couldn't very well let a basket with a child in it float down a stormy river!'. Teresa's place within Tomas' poetic memory strengthens as his metaphor for her takes deeper root.

It's after this that Kundera writes, 'Tomas did not realize at the time that metaphors are dangerous. Metaphors are not to be trifled with. A single metaphor can give birth to love'. According to Kundera, in the process of creating a metaphor to explain Teresa's presence in his life to himself, Tomas falls in love with her. Is Tomas really in love with Tereza or in love with the idea of the role of protector that his metaphor for her helps him create for himself? Is it the one or the other or a little of both?

So when we come to much later in the book where Kundera writes, 'I have said before that metaphors are dangerous. Love begins with a metaphor. Which is to say, love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word in our poetic memory', Tomas is a prisoner of the metaphor he created for Tereza.

Ian Beacock considers the power of metaphors from an angle that reverberates strongly in our time, 'Since the 1970s, the free market has slowly become our master metaphor. Its benchmarks of efficiency and profit have become ours. Our capacity to respond to the world and engage with one another as citizens has eroded, and instead we’ve become consumers in all things, rational actors seeking competitive advantage.' (Why we need Arnold Toynbee's good life – Ian Beacock – Aeon). In this digital age of constant, ephemeral and dubious quantification through likes and views, who could argue against this self-evident truth?

Kundera's insight is far more profound than the simple proposition that metaphors are dangerous. Rather it's about how they are dangerous. He warns us that the power metaphors exercise over us is through our imagination, and that this power is very real and very consequential. Metaphors can help foster a giddy feeling of revolt against the prevailing order even as they help keep us in thrall to authority, be it internal or external.

https://www.quora.com/Metaphors-are-dangerous-Love-begins-with-a-metaphor-Which-is-to-say-love-begins-at-the-point-when-a-woman-enters-her-first-word-into-our-poetic-memory-How-can-I-understand-the-sentences-by-Milan-Kundera/answer/Tirumalai-Kamala

The Sounds of Childhood Memories

Music doesn't trigger childhood or any of my memories. Rather than music, specific sounds are the soundtrack of my life, and nostalgic memories of my childhood come flooding back when I hear some of them.

Whenever I hear the sound of trains in Bollywood movies, it brings back memories of my unforgettable journeys on Indian trains and their utterly unique sounds. Thud-ag-thud, thud-ag-thud, thud-ag-thud. Repetitive, soporific, hypnotic, a sound once heard, never forgotten. Oh, and so much more. After all, in a country where a rail trip from the South (Chennai/Madras) to the North-East (Guwahati) takes full nights and days, childhood memories of Indian trains get suffused with so many myriad sounds, especially the enduring calls of train station chaiwalas (tea vendors; About - Chai Wallahs of India; Chaiwala). No matter the time of day or night the train pulls up into the station, the call of the chaiwala resonates. He goes chai-chai-chai-chai-chaiiiyyyan, the last sound extending out and ending on a high note. The memorable ones are those in tiny hamlets, so-called mofussil (mofussil - Wiktionary) stations, where the arrival of a major broad gauge line is not just the event of the day, it's also when they earn their daily bread. The monumental Indian Railways runs on the backs of unique creatures such as Indian train station chaiwala as this marvelously entertaining account, The Station Chai-wallah, evidences.

Often when I hear the clickety-clack of hoof beats, it brings back memories of those vacation horse-buggy rides across the old India that still lives alongside its modern counterpart. Old Delhi, Hyderabad, Bhopal. My childhood horse-buggy rides in all these cities. So different, so exotic, so exciting compared to mundane everyday life, those holiday horses with their swishing tails and their snorts. In turn of course I then remember that one summer vacation in the Northern hill station called Shimla. My dad had arranged for horse rides for the whole family. We saddled up but as we headed out something strange happened. It appeared that the horses my dad and brother were on had other ideas. The two of them appeared to be inseparable so much so they kept clinging to each other, grinding my dad's and brother's legs between them in the process. The guide kept admonishing the horses and tried to yank at them to separate but they kept clinging to each other. Laughing hysterically at this bizarre display, my mom and I almost fell off our own horses. An unforgettable family anecdote.

Sometimes when I hear the sound of waves crashing against the shore just so, it triggers memories of childhood vacation trips to Chennai, in particular to its Marina Beach. Scared of the Bay of Bengal, that vast expanse of water in front of me, I'd cling tightly to my uncle's hand as I braved the water's edge. As the waves crashed down, my feet would sink down into the soaking sand, and as they receded, that sudden leap of fear in the heart as they drag-pulled my sand-stuck feet along with them. As the waves receded, that strange disconcerting feeling of moving yet being perfectly still.

Indian trains, voices of chaiwalas, hoof beats and the sounds of waves crashing on the sea shore. These sounds tend to trigger memories of my childhood.

https://www.quora.com/What-tune-lyric-brings-childhood-memories-back-into-your-mind/answer/Tirumalai-Kamala

What are the psychological and biological origins of human philanthropy?

I am not sure we know the psychological and/or biological origin of human philanthropy. However, I believe that Thornton Wilder accurately identified the baleful sociological impulse that sustains and drives human philanthropy. In his 1967 novel, the Eighth Day, he indelibly defined human philanthropy for me as a malevolent sociological impediment, an anodyne most supreme, a delicately insidious sop to human conscience. Written almost fifty years ago, the following words from his book, The Eighth Day, ring as true for me today as the day I first read them:

"Philanthropy is the roadblock in the path of social justice. Philanthropy is like an infected rain from heaven; it poiseneth him who gives and him who takes

...No rich man ever gave away a penny that he could find a use for. Never has and never will. By separating themselves from a little money the rich feel justified in making a lot more. Spiders draw just enough silk out of their bowels to catch those half-dozen flies they need to feed themselves and their loved ones, but the rich make silk and silk and silk. Nothing can stop them. Their houses are stuffed with it. Their banks are stuffed with it, and it's not out of their bowels they make it, but out of the bowels and lungs and eye-balls of others. The little coins that fall from their tables make churches and libraries. Churches! That's where the soothing syrup's stored. There's no marriage tighter than that between the banker and the bishop. The poor should rest content in the situation in which God has seen fit to place them. It's God's will that they work a lifetime over a sewing machine or in a mine

..a poison-bloated cloud. Everyone can see it. It's fed by the unequal distribution of wealth. It poisons the child in the cradle. It befouls the home. It's so dark in the courthouse you can't see a truth two feet away. The most sacred thing in the world is property. It's more sacred than conscience. It's more untouchable than a woman's reputation. And for all its importance, no one, NO ONE, has ever attempted to put a qualifying value on it. Property can be unearned, unmerited, extorted, abused, misspent, without losing one iota of its sacred character - its religious character." Thornton Wilder. The Eighth Day.

https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-psychological-and-biological-origins-of-human-philanthropy/answer/Tirumalai-Kamala

The 2015 South Indian Floods: The Front Page News Story that Global News Media Wantonly Neglected

Heard what happened in Chennai, India's 4th largest metro? Wouldn't be surprised if the answer's no or at least not enough. After all, it's about unprecedented floods, that too in South India, not in Delhi or Mumbai. As well, clearly nothing to do with terrorism, and everything to do with a lethal mix of non-existent city planning, and rampant big business and government corruption. So there you have it, heavy rains pounding it already since mid-November, this city of ~7 to 9 million received so much rain on 1st December, 2015 that it broke a record set in 1918, its English National news daily, the Hindu, unable to publish a print edition for the 1st time since 1878. As heavy rains continued incessantly, Chennai then became marooned for about a day and a half, i.e., no flights, trains or buses going in or coming out. Plus no power, no cell phone service. However, the rains didn't bring this marvelous, beloved city to its knees. No, unrestrained, unplanned growth did. A coastal town on the Bay of Bengal, Chennai's flat as a pancake. Who in their right mind builds office parks, even an IT corridor, in flood plains? Yet, over the past decade, the flood plains areas around Rajiv Gandhi Salai  became home to spanking new office parks housing the likes of corporate giants such as Cognizant, Infosys,  Tata Consultancy Services, while East Coast Road became the site of unrestrained housing construction, all underwater or recently underwater as I write this.

 

No, not the fig-leaf of climate change, A to Z this was a human-made disaster

With an average elevation of only 6.7 meters above sea level (1, 2), and many neighborhoods actually at sea level, Chennai's water drainage is challenging even in the best of times.

 

In actuality, Chennai is really a conglomeration of a bunch of overgrown villages that merged and grew beyond, of course only in 3 directions, North, West and South. The Bay of Bengal to the East precludes growth in that direction. Each of these villages used to have its temple with a water tank used for water storage. Inlets leading to such tanks and surrounding lakes would be kept open. As the city grew, these tanks and lakes shrank from ~650 to ~27. As Geeta Doctor writes, 'The areas least affected by the floods were the older parts of the city, where temple tanks remembered their history and culverts and drains constructed in the 19th century managed to find ways to carry the overflow' (2).

 

'The Virugambakkam drain, which was 6.5 km long and drained into the Nungambakkam tank, is now present only for an of extent of 4.5 km. The remaining two km stretch of the drain is missing. Nungambakkam tank was filled and built. This along with the loss of Koyambedu drain has resulted in the periodic flooding of Koyambedu and Virugambakkam areas' (3).

 

This phenomenon is now repeating in the suburbs. The surplus channels connecting various waterbodies in western suburbs such as Ambattur and Korattur have been encroached upon. The waterbody in Mogappair has almost disappeared. Lake beds often serve as make shift dumping yards and cesspool. This has resulted in inundation of neighbouring localities. The Veerangal Odai that connects the Adambakkam lake with Pallikaranai marsh ends abruptly after 550 m from its origin and the remaining part is not to be seen. This causes inundation in places such as Puzhithivakkam and Madipakkam' (3).

 

S. Mohan, professor, Environment and Water Resources Engineering, IIT Madras, cautions that loss of waterbodies and channels not only induced flood but also increased saltwater intrusion. As a thumb rule, he said, every one metre of water-head in a water body can push sea water laterally by 40 meters' (3). Note the date of this report (3), June 2011. No plausible deniability possible for the powers-that-be.

 

'The corporation began storm water drain projects across 31 canals and four major drainage basins, namely Kosasthalaiyar, Cooum, Adyar and Kovalam, promising to remodel 183 kilometres of drains and construct 321 kilometres of new drains. Multiple deadlines later, it hasn’t reached the halfway mark. The cost has crossed Rs 5,000 crore, on various components of the projects, but change is hard to gauge (4).

 

“So far nearly 140 kilometres of the storm water project are complete and progress is made for the rest,” Paranthaman says. “It’s a better situation today than it was in 2005 or even last year. The corporation is a large entity; things cannot happen overnight.” (4).

 

The drains are only a part of the story. “These are temporary patches,” says Arpan Sundaresan, a professor of water mapping and management who has done extensive research on Chennai’s water management. “Canals and rivers need to be widened, drains to be connected to water bodies. Concrete roads tend to waterlog faster. Things get worse when marshlands are encroached for construction. You can’t ignore these issues and simply focus on one aspect of a huge problem.” (4). Will someone demand from the aforesaid Paranthaman, zonal officer, Zone VIII, Corporation of Chennai, an explanation for his parlous statements to the contrary? Probably not. After all, we've habituated civic officials and politicians to never expect to be held accountable, especially so in India.

 

'Today, Chennai has a host of expensive infrastructure aimed at ushering in a “Make in Chennai” boom – a brand-new (though leaky) airport built on the floodplains of the River Adyar, a sprawling bus terminal in flood-prone Koyambedu, a Mass Rapid Transit System constructed almost wholly over the Buckingham Canal and the Pallikaranai marshlands, expressways and bypass roads constructed with no mind to the tendency of water to flow, an IT corridor and a Knowledge Corridor consisting of engineering colleges constructed on waterbodies, and automobile and telecom SEZs and gated residential areas built on important drainage courses and catchments' (5).

 

The case of the Pallikaranai marshlands, which drains water from a 250-squarekilometre catchment, is telling. Not long ago, it was a 50-square-kilometre water sprawl in the southern suburbs of Chennai. Now, it is 4.3 square kilometres – less than a tenth of its original. The growing finger of a garbage dump sticks out like a cancerous tumour in the northern part of the marshland. Two major roads cut through the waterbody with few pitifully small culverts that are not up to the job of transferring the rain water flows from such a large catchment. The edges have been eaten into by institutes like the National Institute of Ocean Technology. Ironically, NIOT is an accredited consultant to prepare Environmental Impact Assessments on various subjects, including on the implications of constructing on waterbodies' (5).

 

Virtually every one of the flood-hit areas can be linked to ill-planned construction. The Chennai Bypass connecting NH45 to NH4 blocks the east flowing drainage causing flooding in Anna Nagar, Porur, Vanagaram, Maduravoyal, Mugappair and Ambattur. The Maduravoyal lake has shrunk from 120 acres to 25. Ditto with Ambattur, Kodungaiyur and Adambakkam tanks. The Koyambedu drain and the surplus channels from Korattur and Ambattur tanks are missing. Sections of the Veerangal Odai connecting Adambakkam tank to Pallikaranai are missing. The South Buckingham Canal from Adyar creek to Kovalam creek has been squeezed from its original width of 25 metres to 10 metres in many places due to the Mass Rapid Transit System railway stations. Important flood retention structures such as Virugambakkam, Padi and Villivakkam tanks are officially abandoned' (5). As I wrote already, who in their right minds builds on floodplains?

 

'The  sewage system in Chennai  was originally designed for a population of 0.65 million  at 114 litres per capita per  day of water supply; it was  further modified during 1989–1991, but is now much  below the required capacity'. Even more appallingly, 'The city has only 855 km of storm  drains against 2847 km of urban roads' (6). Inevitable insult to injury? Banks of all three major water bodies, the Adyar and Cooum rivers, and the Buckingham Canal are heavily encroached. Replaced by concrete (7), green covers in some city wards have reduced by ~99%, drastically reducing the city's water-holding capacity as well (6).

 

'Pallikaranai marshland covered 50 sq km in 2001, now it’s 4.3 sq km. Maduravoyal lake shrunk from 120 to 25 acres. Excess rain had nowhere to drain. Authorities had abandoned retention canals too, further compounding floods' (8).

 

To top off the litany of human-made woes, everywhere, indiscriminate garbage, especially plastic, especially in storm water drains. No mystery about the outcome. Floods and inundations more likely (9, 10).

Research by the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) shows (11),

• Of the >600 waterbodies in the 1960s, only a fraction were healthy in 2008.
• The State's Water Resources Department's records show that 19 major lakes had shrunk from 1, 130 hectares in the 1980s to ~645 by the early 2000s. 
• Chennai's aquifers are depleted.

And it's not as though others haven't published careful risk-assessment of rains and floods in Chennai (12, 13). Again, no plausible deniability for politicians, city planners, bureaucrats and big business corporates.

 

News Media coverage of the 2015 South Indian Floods: A total washout

First time I saw BBC World news cover the story of the unprecedented Chennai Floods was on December 5, 2015, in its 1PM US Eastern time broad-cast. A brief interview with the Chennai City Commissioner. I timed the coverage. ~ 2 minutes. The 2PM broadcast? No coverage at all. An oil rig explosion in the Caspian Sea took precedence. Of course both times the US 2015 San Bernardino shooting took most of the air-time. US news media? Never expected them to cover it anyway just as I never expect them to cover real global news, only sensationalist crimes and terrorist attacks. Meantime, death tolls from the  2015 South Indian Rains is twice that of the Paris attacks and counting.

 

India's so-called national news media. Why so-called? You know there's a story there. So-called because Chennai floods patently proved, at least to me, that India lacks a national news media. I saw English news channels start covering the story but only sporadically and desultorily. Timing of their coverage is telling. Started to happen when reports began coming out of an ~100-year old record being broken and TV channels could beam images of grubby, 'foreign visitors' stranded at the flooded Chennai airport (8). The modern 24X7 news cycle is verily an insatiable beast, sensationalism bred into its very marrow. Accountability and accurate information? Laughably idealistic concepts, so passe and irrelevant. Not just that, the old North-South divide I grew up in is still very much alive and kicking. Mumbai 2008 terror attacks? 24X7 coverage not just locally but also internationally. Chennai Floods 2015? Perfunctory, lip-service coverage and quickly move on to the real news, either Rahul Gandhi's newfound aggression or Delhi's smog or the never-endingly sensational turns in the Sheena Bora murder case for national news agencies, or the 2015 San Bernardino shooting incident for international news agencies. Only local dailies like the Hindu and vernacular press (Dinamalar, Dinamani, Dina Thanthi, etc.), and online magazines like the Scroll and the Wire sustained the yeoman effort of wall-to-wall flood news coverage.

 

Why am I harping so much about unforgivably lamentable national and international news coverage of this unprecedented disaster in Chennai? The press is rightfully called the Fourth Estate, ideally holding accountable the administration, legislature and judiciary. Sustained coverage of the scale and details of the disaster unfolding since December 1 is the only means to put unrelenting pressure on powers-that-be to deliver, i.e., deliver timely succor, relief, rehabilitation and explanations. For e..g., what did the Jayalalithaa-led State Government and Narendra Modi-led Central Government do on Dec 1 and 2, 2015? To all intents and purposes, sat with their thumbs stuck firmly up their asses. After all, there was no substantial media coverage to stoke public outrage that in one fell swoop, millions in India's 4th largest metro had been relegated to the medieval age.

 

Irony is we're globally connected as never before, at least in theory, and yet global news coverage has likely never been as abysmal as it is today. Certainly the internet has democratized many aspects of society but the downside is more information doesn't equal better or accurate information. Accurate, vetted information's gasping and struggling to make itself heard through all the noise. Forget about knowledge, that's left behind at the starting line. Surfeit of technology yoked to deficit of wisdom, in public, corporate and individual life. Such a most unholy recipe for epic disaster only makes future episodes more inevitable.

 

Disasters inevitably stir into prominence Human Nature's Ugly Underbelly and How

• Public officials bullying relief supply workers to stick Chief Minister Jayalalithaa's photo on relief supply packages (14, 15), throwing much-needed relief supplies into the river rather than allow volunteers to deliver without political patronage (16).
• Corporates such as Zomato and Uber (company) preying on desperation to make a quick buck (17).
• Individuals stockpiling diesel fuel to illegally sell at exorbitant prices, 'ordinary white candles, normally sold for Rs.5 to Rs.10 apiece, retailed for a little over Rs.50, with shopkeepers warning that prices would skyrocket over Rs.80 in the coming days', affluent folk fleeing in droves if not outright out of the city then to 3rd, 4th and 5th star hotels, gated communities pumping water out of their underground car parks into neighboring communities, thoughtlessly flooding them (18), I could go on and on. And as usual, leaving their pets to their own miserable fate, enough affluent folk who patently don't deserve their material bounty (19).

All shame, no decency.

 

Even more ominous? 2015 South Indian floods doesn't cite any data since November 18 for water- and vector-borne diseases (20). As my brother pointed out, official sources are being lax, maybe deliberately so, in divulging data on disease outbreaks. Already, his friends and neighbors active in the NGO arena are inundated with calls and texts requesting Clioquinol and Enteral administration, commonly used for treating symptoms of GI tract infections.

 

Social Media: Spontaneous Voice and Will of Decent Chennaites

Many reports asked, 'where's the government?'. As Indians know all too well, less is better where the government's concerned. After all, the civic authority's so inept and corrupt, they kept even the heroic military and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) waiting (21) or forced them to rescue relatives of VIPs at the cost of ordinary citizens (16).

 

Apart from the military and NDRF, volunteer- and social media-driven efforts have kept Chennai from drowning completely (22, 23) . As I write this on Dec 6, 2015, going by their Twitter feeds, some such as RJ Balaji and Siddharth (actor) seem to be awake since Dec 1, 2015.

 

#Chennaimicro, #chennaimicro hashtag on Twitter, #ChennaiRainsHelp, #ChennaiRainsHelp - Twitter Search, #ChennaiRains, #chennairains - Twitter Search, and region-wise statuses on Google docs, Area and Road Updates, these, and not official sources, offer a real-time snapshot of on-the-ground situation in Chennai. Unfortunately, it's even more difficult to separate facts from noise in social media.

Unlike the widespread looting and violence of post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans, Chennai's millions suffered stoically and largely non-violently. A few scuffles broke out between gated communities and individual house owners when the former thoughtlessly drained their underground car parks (18). Poorer North Chennai, ever the step-child, saw some spontaneous protests at delays in relief (24). No looting, no deaths through violence, at least none reported in local or social media. In the face of unbearable pressure, the immeasurable restraint and dignity of ordinary Chennaites brings tears to my eyes.

 

Another story to restore faith in humanity? During a brief respite at the height of the rains, my brother ventured out for necessities when a little van pulled up. Some volunteers got out, took out pans, placed them on the sidewalk and poured out freshly cooked food. Apparently familiar with the drill, stray dogs gathered around and ate. The volunteers patiently waited until they finished, then poured clean water for them to drink, again waited until they finished drinking, then cleaned up, packed up and moved on. He spoke to the volunteers but unfortunately, he forgot the name of the NGO doing this. Such people are angels on earth.

1. Quartz, Devjyot Ghoshal, Nov 18, Dec 3, 2015. http://qz.com/551967/why-does-ch...
2. The Scroll, Geeta Doctor. Nov 20, 2015, http://scroll.in/article/770438/...
3. The Hindu, A. Srivatsan, K. Lakshmi, June 13, 2011. http://www.thehindu.com/news/cit...
4. FountainInk, Jayashree Arunachalam, Nov 17, 2015. http://fountainink.in/?p=7766&all=1
5. The Scroll, Nityanand Jayaraman, Nov 18, 2015. http://scroll.in/article/769928/...
6. Gupta, Anil K., and Sreeja S. Nair. "Urban floods in Bangalore and Chennai: risk management challenges and lessons for sustainable urban ecology." Current Science(Bangalore) 100.11 (2011): 1638-1645. http://www.currentscience.ac.in/...
7. The Wire, Gopalakrishna Gandhi, Dec 6, 2015, http://thewire.in/2015/12/06/for...
8. Outlook, Geeta Doctor, Dec 14, 2015, http://www.outlookindia.com/arti...
9. The Scroll, Nityanand Jayaraman, Nov 26, 2015, http://scroll.in/article/771408/...
10. The Wire, Dec 2, 2015, http://thewire.in/2015/12/02/in-...
11. The Hindu, Vikas Vasudeva, Dec 4, 2015, http://www.thehindu.com/news/cit...
12. Drescher, Axel, et al. "Risk assessment of extreme precipitation in the coastal areas of Chennai as an element of catastrophe prevention." Forum DKKV/CEDIM: disaster reduction in climate change. Vol. 15. No. 16.10. 2007. http://www.researchgate.net/prof...
13. Suriya, S., Mudgal, B.V. Assessment of Flood Potential Ranking of Subwatersheds: Adayar Watershed a Case Study. International Journal of Innovative Research in Science, Engineering and Technology. Vol.3, Issue 7, July 2014. http://www.ijirset.com/upload/20...
14. The Scroll, Dec 5, 2015. http://scroll.in/article/773852/...
15. The Hindu, T.K. Rohit, Dec 6, 2015, http://www.thehindu.com/news/cit...
16. The Hindu, Tamil Nadu Bureau, Dec 5, 2015. http://www.thehindu.com/news/cit...
17. The Scroll, Carlo Pizzati, Dec 5, 2015. http://scroll.in/article/773686/...
18. The Wire, Anuj Srivas, Dec 5, 2015. http://thewire.in/2015/12/05/the...
19. The Hindu, S. Vijay Kumar, The Hindu, Nov 26, 2015. http://www.thehindu.com/news/cit...
20. The Economic Times, Nov 18, 2015. http://articles.economictimes.in...
21. The Hindu, Sruthisagar Yamunan, Dec 6, 2015. http://www.thehindu.com/news/cit...
22. The Scroll, Dec 2, 2015, http://scroll.in/article/773058/...
23. The Hindu, Raveena Joseph, Apporva Sripathu, Dec 3, 5, 2015, http://www.thehindu.com/features...
24. The Hindu, Sruthisagar Ramanan, Dec 3, 5, 2015, http://www.thehindu.com/news/nat...