-The Hindu Ignoring the groundswell of public opinion against a resumption of bauxite Mining, the Andhra Pradesh government has been taking concrete steps to start mineral exploration in the Eastern Ghats. The Maoists have used this opportunity to try winning support of the tribals. Ever since the Communist Party of India (Maoist) [CPI (Maoist)] made a tactical retreat from the undivided Andhra Pradesh in 2004, engagements between the naxalites and the State...

-Economic and Political Weekly Minerals are a commons, held by state governments in public trust for the people, especially for future generations. With Mining, states dispose of minerals for money, and have so far lost more than half their value. As this study shows, over the last eight years of iron ore Mining in Goa, each family of four in the state has lost the equivalent of Rs 13.51 lakh, while...

-The Hindu District Mineral Foundations were set up to protect the interests of Adivasi communities who have borne the costs of Mining. But they are flawed in their current form Through 2011-13, dogged investigators from the Justice M. B. Shah Commission on illegal Mining toured the rust-red villages, forests and rivers of northern Odisha, and trawled through reams of official records including from the environment, minerals, railways, and revenue departments. They met...

-Business Standard Govt concludes it has no mapped information on perennial rivers, dams & irrigation projects which would be impacted by coal Mining To be finalised soon by the government, the number of inviolate coal blocks where Mining will be banned is likely to be reduced from the originally identified 206 to less than 35. The environment ministry has decided to again dilute the parameters for identifying which of India's 793 blocks...

-IPS News GUNTUR, India: Thirty-seven-year-old Kode Sujatha stands in front of a hut with a palm-thatched roof, surrounded by a group of men shouting angrily and jostling one another for a spot at the front of the crowd. Each of the boatmen, who carry sand mined from a nearby river to the shore every day, wants to be paid before the others.   Sujatha stares hard at them, holds up a piece of paper...