Mining bill gets it right

Sustainable mining is an oxymoron. Environmentalists will tell you this. Mining—coal to limestone—takes away forests, devastates mountains and leaves the land pockmarked. It also destroys livelihoods of people and displaces them. Worse, modern, mechanised mining takes away livelihood based on land but does not replace it with local employment—all estimates show that direct employment in the mining sector has fallen sharply. It provides wealth, but not for local development.

Vedanta and lessons in conservation

The Forest Rights Act of 2006—also known as the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act—came after considerable and bitter opposition from conservation groups.

Witness to opposition

Every chair of the community hall of the Shree Shantadurga temple in South Goa's Quepem taluka was taken. In a few minutes, the public hearing for Shakti bauxite mines was to begin. Then there arose a whisper: the temple had objected to the hearing being held in their premises; it was being called off. It was the second time the hearing was convened and this time, too, the villagers told us, the 30-day notice rule had been violated.

What China is doing to Goa

I wrote last fortnight about how mining in Goa for iron ore was ripping its forests and devastating its people. I wrote of the violence and protests I saw in its villages, where miners were pitted against people angry at the loss of their cultivable lands and their water bodies. I had asked then what are we doing? I ask this again.

Goa's mining problems

We were standing between a massive mine and a stunning water reservoir. Local activists were explaining to me that this iron ore mine was located in the catchment of the Salaulim water reservoir, the only water source for south Goa. Suddenly, as I started clicking with my camera, we were surrounded by a jeepload of men. They said they were from the mine management and wanted us off the property. We explained that we had come on a public path and that there were no signs to indicate that we were trespassing. But they were not in a mood to listen.

Iron in the soul

This fortnight 12 tribals were killed in a police firing in Orissa. Their crime: protesting against the acquisition of their land for an industrial park. The state says that it had 'acquired' some 4856 ha of land some years ago and paid handsome 'compensation' to people who held land rights. It is another matter that it sold the same land to Tata Steel company, against whose bhoomi puja, the local tribals protested, for six times the price it paid to poor landowners.

Nimalapedu Zero

The milestone read Nimalapedu 0. We had travelled through the forest regions of Vishakapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, to this tribal village, which we knew had stoutly resisted and tamed the might of the Birlas when the latter was given a lease to mine calcite in their backyard. This was the village whose battle led, in 1997, to a historic judgement of the Supreme Court that put a stop to the greed of private companies, eager to get their hands on a lease for land in tribal areas to mine or set up a factory.