The villagers abandoned those wells [in their backyards] after Coca-Cola built a factory in this district in Kerala in 2000, sucking groundwater from beneath the villagers' feet and converting it into soft drinks and bottled water. In the process, according to the villagers, Coca-Cola polluted and depleted their well water, charges that the company rejects... [Local] governments are growing increasingly assertive in exercising control over the pace and methodology of the country's economic development...The company says it has brought first-world environmental practices to the area and will soon be restoring more water than it depletes.