An engineer has filed a petition in the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court charging that tourists were polluting the natural waterfalls with their oil baths in Courtallam town in southern Tirunelveli.
The petitioner told the court that over 100,000 tourists visit the town during the peak season and use nearly 5,000 litres of oil every day. The oily water contaminated with chemicals and plastic wastes of shampoo and soap sachets has affected irrigation and drinking purposes. 
The court has asked an experts’ panel to review and submit a report within a week.
Courtallam town is located at 520m above sea level on the Western Ghats and has four rivers originating from there. It has five government-maintained natural waterfalls that reach their peak during the months of June, July and August. It is nicknamed the health spa of South India for the medicinal value of its waterfalls. 

Six killed as car, lorry colide
Six people including three women were killed when their car collided with a speeding lorry at Asanur near Ulundurpet in Villupuram district about 150km from Chennai last week.
The victims were related and were returning from a social function in Thanjavur. The driver reportedly lost control when a lorry entered the highway from a side road. 
In another incident, 20 pilgrims including six women were injured when their tipper lorry capsized at Kulithalai in Karur district. Police arrested the lorry driver for illegally carrying people travel. Tipper lorries and mini vans are often hired at cheap rates for transporting large number of people in rural areas.
In yet another accident, three members of an Andhra Pradesh family including a woman died when their Puducherry-bound car rammed into a roadside parapet wall at Tindivanam about 150km from Chennai last week. 

Convocation turns into chaos
The 99-year-old Hindi Prachar Sabha, a pioneering organisation for long-distance Hindi language study courses, faced a near stampede when over 30,000 students came to get their certificates at its convocation on November 19 at T Nagar in Chennai.
Organisers blamed the students for bringing too many companions but admitted that the crowd was more because it was a joint convocation for 2015 and 2016 batches. 
Though several counters had been set up to give the certificates, there were no queues and a stampede followed. 
Finally the organisers called in the police to control the angry crowd who complained of waiting a whole day without getting the documents.

Singer completes golden jubilee
Veteran playback singer S P Balasubramanyam will be completing 50 years in the South Indian film industry next month.
He will be honoured with the Centenary Award for Indian Film Personality at the International Film Festival of India (IIFI) being held in Goa. 
Balasubramanyam has sung over 40,000 songs in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and Hindi films. He has also produced devotional and light music albums. He has also acted in many films.

Nedunchezhiyan’s widow dies
Visalakshi Nedunchezhiyan, the organisation secretary of ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and ex-president of Tamil Nadu State Commission for Women died of age-related illness on November 14. She was 92 and survived by her son Mathivanan and daughter-in-law Kalyani, who had a tainted career as vice-chancellor of Madurai Kamaraj University.