ALMOST all the maladies afflicting the Indian mining industry have manifested themselves forcefully in the mineral-rich State of Jharkhand. Indiscriminate exploitation of natural resources, large-scale displacement of tribal people, and the rise of a mining lobby with immense political clout are only a few of these. Of course, in the last decade the State has also witnessed the rise of a number of people's resistance movements against displacement and environmental degradation...

The government is thinking of bringing in a law that would allow the National Investigation Agency to probe cases of illegal mining. The proposal for arming the NIA with this power had come from the Prime Minister’s Office. Sources said the objective was to enable the Centre to break the “mining mafia”. If passed, the proposed legislation will also enable the government to scrap leases of companies engaged in illegal operations, like...

By the end of the third day (i.e. 11th April, 2010) of the The Independent People’s Tribunal that took place at Constitutional Club between 9 and 11 April, 2010, Retired Supreme Court judge Justice Sawant, while concluding, said that participatory democracy has been lacking in India. Democracy can never be equated with elections only. The jury during the 3-day long People’s Tribunal heard the testimonies of a large number of...

The Supreme Court has instructed several mining enterprises based in Anantpur district of Andhra Pradesh — including one, the Obulapuram Mining Company, that is associated with the powerful Reddy brothers of Karnataka — to stop operations while investigations are conducted into whether they are mining in areas which they aren’t supposed to touch. This is a welcome check on the Reddy brothers, who must have begun to think of themselves...

Around a third of India Inc’s investment plans are in states affected by Naxalism. Anyone who’s been reading Mahesh Vyas regularly, including his piece on today’s OpEd page, knows India Inc’s investment juggernaut has rolled on relatively unchecked, despite the global crisis, for the past five years. The investments on hand, the CMIE (Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy) chief’s calculations show, have the potential of increasing India’s GDP by 50 per...