I am assuming row.followup_date is a String in the format "yyyy-MM-dd"
I'm a big fan of eliminating scriptlet code, so here is the JSTL equivalent.
Note: don't mix up scriptlet variables with EL variables as the previous poster (Manish Nakhre) seems to have done. They are not the same thing at all.
Personally I also thing that row.followup_date should be a Date object, and
you should format it when you want to display it, not before. Which would make the comparision between Dates rather than formatted strings.
Cheers,
evnafets