DMK's Stalin, Kanimozhi Court Arrest During Cauvery Protests In Tamil Nadu: 10 Developments

Stalin was arrested while attempting to stop trains and his sister Kanimozhi was staging a road block in Chennai. They were bundled into buses along with their supporters by the police and were taken away.

Most shops and restaurants are closed in Chennai, and there are very few private buses and autorickshaws on the roads. But government buses, trains and flights have not been affected. Schools, colleges and government offices are open.

The bandh has been called by farmers and trade unions demanding that Karnataka release Tamil Nadu's share of water from the Cauvery river.

They have also demanded that the J Jayalalithaa government in the state ensure that violence since last week in Karnataka targeting Tamilians and their property is stopped.

There have been huge protests in Karnataka, with widespread vandalism, after the Supreme Court ordered Karnataka to release less water every day from the Cauvery to Tamil Nadu but for more number of days.

Speaking to NDTV, Kanimozhi said, "The government should have protected people from Tamil Nadu in Karnataka... they must solve the issue once and for all." She also called for "an all-party meeting over this."

Karnataka, which will end up releasing more water, has said it cannot obey the Supreme Court order. In court it has argued that Tamil Nadu's claims of farmers' "agony" are false, and that Karnataka has hardly enough water for farming or even drinking after poor rain.

Tamil Nadu says its farmers lost their Kuruvai crop earlier, and are in desperate need of the water for the samba or second seasonal crop of the year. Karnataka says Tamil Nadu has already completed one crop cycle, and is now unfairly seeking water for another, whereas its own farmers are struggling.

The Cauvery river, which flows through southern Karnataka and then into Tamil Nadu, has been a point of conflict for decades. Its water was originally divided according to nearly century-old agreements.

Karnataka says it has been given a raw deal. Tamil Nadu says lakhs of acres have come to depend on the water and so its share cannot be reconfigured. In 1990, the central government created a tribunal to examine the conflict which in 2007 delivered its verdict on how water should be shared between Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Puducherry and Kerala. However, the states have challenged the divide.