For three sultry days in January, there was a lot of commotion in the idyllic village of Parakkadavu on the banks of the Chalakudy river that flows through the northern outskirts of Ernakulam district in Kerala. It revolved around the controversial SilverLine project, the proposed 529.45-km semi high-speed rail corridor connecting Thiruvananthapuram in the south with Kasaragod in the north at an operating speed touching 200kmph. Votaries see it as a revolutionary move to upgrade travel, while detractors decry it as a vanity scheme, citing budget, technical and environmental concerns.
Growing protests
On January 19 morning, a posse of officials turned up at Triveni, ward 16 of Parakkadavu panchayat, for laying survey stones for the SilverLine project. They hardly expected to face stiff resistance from people with different political affiliations and were forced to beat a hasty retreat.
