{"id":130319,"date":"2014-07-15T15:27:06","date_gmt":"2014-07-15T15:27:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=130319"},"modified":"2014-07-15T15:27:06","modified_gmt":"2014-07-15T15:27:06","slug":"victory-activists-coca-cola-forced-shut-bottling-plant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/business-news\/victory-activists-coca-cola-forced-shut-bottling-plant\/","title":{"rendered":"Victory for Activists: Coca-Cola Forced to Shut Bottling Plant"},"content":{"rendered":"

Coca-Cola, the world\u2019s largest beverage producer, has been ordered to shut down its bottling plant in Varanasi, India following local complaints that the company was drawing excessive amounts of groundwater. After an investigation, government authorities ruled that the company had violated its operating license.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Fatima Hansia<\/em><\/p>\n

Activists hailed the victory. \u201cWe knew it was a matter of time before the government acknowledged the demands of the community. This is a great victory and a welcome confirmation that local communities can successfully take on big, powerful businesses,\u201d Nandlal Master, an activist from Lok Samiti, told the India Resource Center, an activist group.* \u201cWe are looking forward to reclaiming the community-owned land that belongs rightfully to the people.We will not rest until Coca-Cola is evicted.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A protest outside India’s Coca-Cola headquarters. Photo: Kasuga Sho. Used under Creative Commons license.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This is\u00a0not the first time that the company has been in trouble in India<\/a>\u00a0for unsustainable water extraction practices. In 2004 a bottling plant in Plachimada, Kerala, was closed for excessive water consumption. Later Kerala passed legislation that allows Coca-Cola to be sued for as much as\u00a0$47 million in damages as result of the operations. And last year, community organizers in Charba, Uttarakhand, defeated Coca-Cola\u2019s plans to build a new factory as soon as the proposal went public.<\/p>\n

Indian activists have long complained that Coca-Cola\u2019s water extraction policies \u2014 the company uses three liters of water to make one liter of Coke \u2014 are\u00a0burdening an already water-scarce country<\/a>. Such excessive water extraction directly threatens farmers \u2014 70 percent of India\u2019s population \u2014 who rely on water as a key component for their agricultural output.<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Coca-Cola, the world\u2019s largest beverage producer, has been ordered to shut down its bottling plant in Varanasi, India following local complaints that the company was drawing excessive amounts of groundwater. After an investigation, government authorities ruled that the company had violated its operating license.\u00a0 Fatima Hansia Activists hailed the victory. \u201cWe knew it was a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":130320,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-130319","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-business-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}