Kodaikanal still won’t: Sofia Ashraf’s latest video counters Unilever’s defense with facts

Kodaikanal still won’t: Sofia Ashraf’s latest video counters Unilever’s defense with facts
Kodaikanal still won’t: Sofia Ashraf’s latest video counters Unilever’s defense with facts
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Sofia Ashraf’s has struck again.

On Wednesday, campaign group Jhatkaa released a video featuring Sofia Ashraf countering Unilever’s defence in her own sassy way. And a little help from a Vijaykanth cutout and apt memes.

Watch the video here:

The video is part of Jhatkaa’s campaign, which will allow people to send an email to Environment Minister Anil Dave directly. You can access it here.

Sofia’s latest video comes a year after her Nicki Minaj-inspired ‘Kodaikanal Won’t’ went viral, prompting a response from Unilever in August 2015. Following a hiatus of a year, Sofia and others have stepped their campaign to get Unilever to clean-up the mercury from Kodaikanal’s shola forests.

In the video, Sofia counters Unilever’s defence with facts of her own. She points out that contrary to Unilever’s claim of having not dumped any mercury in Kodiakanal, a 2002 study found out that the factory in fact discharged more than 1.3 tonnes of mercury into the Pambar Shola reserved forest.

On point is the shocked face of a young Justin Beiber for effect.

“1.3 tonnes, guys. That’s the weight of a fully grown bear dressed from head to toe in Mallu wedding jewellery,” says Sofia to drive the point home.

She then goes on to explain how the toy makers the contaminated glass was sold to made marbles that kids play with.

And while Unilever claims to have removed any contamination from the “ecologically sensitive region”, the company’s own study found in 2015 that mercury residue found from a stream in the Pambar Shola region was five times higher than the safe limit.

Sofia also alleges that the “independent scientific studies” that Unilever claims to have based its justifications on are anything but. While the initial standard of clean-up was supposed to 10 mg per kg of soil, it was increased to 20-25 mg per kg of soil after a meeting between Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board and Unilever. FYI, the UK standard is 1 mg/kg of soil.

With this video, Sofia hopes to get Unilever to respond to this video and up the pressure on the overdue clean up.

Watch the original ‘Kodiakanal Won’t’ video here:

(Edited by Anisha Sheth)

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