the us office of the World Wildlife Fund (wwf), a non-governmental organisation, recently announced its collaboration with Coca-Cola Company for freshwater conservation work and research in freshwater biodiversity globally. Ironically, Coca-Cola's Indian subsidiary has been charged with overexploiting groundwater in Kerala's Plachimada district (see: 'CALLING THE SHOTS' [2], Down To Earth, December 15, 2003).

But conveniently sidestepping the matter, wwf-us told Down To Earth: "We were aware of the issue and the conflicting perspectives on what happened