The Coke Machine - Michael Blanding [183]
Page 235 Thums Up, a drier and fruitier cola: Tuck Business School of Dartmouth, Coca-Cola India, Case no. 1-0085, prepared by Jennifer Kaye, under the direction of Professor Paul A. Argenti, 2004 (hereafter, Tuck case).
Page 235 Coke simply bought up the company: Banerjee, 19.
Page 235 at least 49 percent of shares: Banerjee, 25.
Page 235 6 bottles per person per year: Tuck case.
Page 236 Coke languishes in third place: Banerjee, 43-46.
Page 236 stay of execution in divesting its shares: Banerjee, 28-32.
Page 236 10 percent of the company is Indian-owned: Banerjee, 33-42.
Page 236 Volume grew by nearly 40 percent: Tuck case.
Page 237 sank six bore wells: Coca-Cola India, “The Coca-Cola Company Addresses Allegations Made About Our Business in India,” press release, June 1, 2004, www.thecocacolacompany.com/presscenter/viewpoints_india.
Page 237 fast-tracked approval: A. Krishnan, Perumutty Gram Panchayat president, interview by the author.
Page 237 “When Coca-Cola first”...“Many villages have boycotted”: R. Ajayan, interview by the author.
Page 237 distributed sludge for use as fertilizer: Ajayan, interview by the author; several anonymous villagers, interviews by the author.
Page 238 never enough water: Anonymous villagers, interviews by the author.
Page 238 bitter aftertaste: Taste test by the author.
Page 238 literacy rate of over 90 percent: Kerala Fact Sheet, 2005-2006, National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3), Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, http://www.nfhsindia.org/pdf/KE.pdf.
Page 238 antibusiness climate had led to high unemployment: See Banerjee, 128-129.
Page 238 returned a portion of their ancestral lands: C. R. Bijoy, “Kerala’s Plachimada Struggle” (Thiruvananthapuram [Trivandrum], India: Plachimada Coca-Cola Virudha Samara Samithi and Plachimada Struggle Solidarity Committee, November 2006), 4; C. R. Bijoy, interview by the author.
Page 239 “I told them their strength was in the local”: Bijoy, interview by the author.
Page 239 around-the-clock sit-in: Bijoy and Veloor Swaminathan, interviews by the author; Bijoy, “Kerala’s Plachimada Struggle,” 7-10.
Page 239 “unfit for human consumption”: Sangram Metals report, April 3, 2002; Bijoy, “Kerala’s Plachimada Struggle,” 10.
Page 239 “In the beginning”: Krishnan, interview by the author.
Page 239 Indian branch of Greenpeace: D. Rajeev, “Coca-Cola’s Cup of Woes Overflows,” Inter Press Service, August 7, 2003.
Page 240 Sympathetic stories in the media: For example, “Kerala Villagers Up in Arms Against Coca-Cola,” Press Trust of India, June 21, 2002.
Page 240 declared their support: “Communist Parties Throw Support,” Press Trust of India, February 3, 2003.
Page 240 “They were just too arrogant”: Krishnan, interview by the author.
Page 240 revoking the plant’s operating license: Krishnan, interview by the author; Bijoy, “Kerala’s Plachimada Struggle,” 13; Press Trust of India, July 31, 2003.
Page 240 solid waste as fertilizer: “India Coca-Cola Investigation” (transcript), presenter John Waite, BBC Radio 4, July 25, 2003.
Page 240 useless as fertilizer: P. Venugopal, “Toxicity in Plachimada Sludge,” The Hindu, July 27, 2003.
Page 240 toxic levels of lead and cadmium: BBC Test Results, “Analytical Results for Sample NGP03020”; Bijoy, “Kerala’s Plachimada Struggle,” 11; “Coke’s ‘Toxic Sludge’ Raises Hackles in Kerala; State Pollution Control Board to Probe BBC Charge Against Coca-Cola,” India Abroad, August 8, 2003.
Page 240 prostate and kidney cancer: National Toxicology Program, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, “11th Report on Carcinogens,” January 31, 2005.
Page 241 evidence from a respected British university: For an excellent exploration of modern India in all its complexity and contradictions, see Mira Kamdar, Planet India: How the Fastest-Growing Democracy Is Transforming America and the World (New York: Scribner, 2007). For a discussion of cultural factors relating to the issue of pesticides in