London-based Vedanta Aluminium Ltd (VAL) on Wednesday denied any mining activity at Niyamgiri Hill. The company is setting up a one-million-tonne refinery at Lanjigarh in Orissa’s Kalahandi district and has been alleged of illegal mining activity. “We have not started mining on the hilltop of Niyamgiri. The recent report in a section of media about bauxite mining in Niyamgiri Hill is just misinterpretation of facts and far from the truth,” Dr...
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After Posco, Vedanta: panel tells Govt don’t let them mine by Debabrata Mohanty and Amitabh Sinha
Citing violation of a host of environmental laws, a government-appointed expert panel has recommended that Vedanta Resources should not be allowed to go ahead with its proposed bauxite mining project in the Niyamgiri hills area of Kalahandi and Rayagada districts in Orissa. A decision on this will be taken by the Ministry of Environment and Forests later this month. The expert panel, headed by Naresh C Saxena, a retired IAS officer who...
More »Vedanta project: panel blames Orissa officials
For deliberate non-implementation of forest right, panchayat Acts The N.C. Saxena panel, which has asked the Centre not to clear Vedanta's bauxite mining project in Orissa, is scathing about the “collusion” of the State and district administrations, blaming them for deliberate non-implementation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA) and the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA) in the region. These Acts insist that the consent of forest dwelling tribal communities...
More »Oliver Twist seeks food security by P Sainath
The NREGS is restricted. The PDS is targeted. Only exploitation is universal. The rotting of lakhs of tonnes of foodgrain in open yards, while shocking, is hardly new or surprising. Remember the rural poor marching on godowns in Andhra Pradesh in 2001 in similar circumstances? The Supreme Court was quite right in jolting the Union government. “In a country where admittedly people are starving, it is a crime to waste even...
More »85,000 people affected in Odisha floods
About 85,000 people in three south-western districts of Odisha have been affected by flash floods as rivers submerged vast areas following heavy rains, state Revenue and Disaster Management minister S N Patro said here today. In 151 villages of the affected blocks, relief camps have been set up and food served to the affected people through community kitchen, Patro told reporters after a visit to the flood-hit districts of Nabarangpur,...
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