Letters - February 29, 2012

Road to Hell

Secretive tribunals, hidden damages

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) appears to have generated the most number of investor-state treaties and shows that rich countries are as much at risk as developing countries. Would you agree?  Interviewee:  Gus Van Harten

India’s many investment treaties make it vulnerable

Would it be correct to say that all countries are at risk from BITs and FTAs although the treaties are targeted at developing countries? Interviewee:  Nathalie Bernas...

Cheated for bauxite

Ministry indifferent to illegal mining

How Bellary was laid waste

The all-powerful iron ore mining mafia of Karnataka has hurled red dust into the eyes of democratic India with impunity, and for long. Convinced of their invincibility, the Reddy brothers, along with their mentors and cohorts, have ravaged the state’s rich mines. Between April 2006 and July 2010 the state lost Rs 16,085 crore due to illegal mining.

Gentle on critical pollution

Over a year ago, the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) undertook an exercise to assess pollution levels in some of the highly polluted industrial areas of India. It then released a list of 43 most polluted areas, terming them critically polluted, and imposed a moratorium on their expansion. The aim of the whole effort was to identify areas that required urgent intervention and pollution abatement measures. The exercise proved futile as these areas remain highly polluted and have brought no change in the lives of people living near them.

On shaky ground

Alok Kumar Gupta Nearly half a million people living in and around the Jharia coalfield in Jharkhand have to be shifted to control underground fires. But the government has no sound strategy for their rehabilitation and the people have no trust in the government

1,620.361 ha of discontent

Brazil rejected posco; why is Orissa so interested South Korean steel giant posco's proposed steel plant hangs in virtual limbo. Popular resistance by the posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti has rendered land acquisition for the Rs 51,000 crore project--hailed as a foreign direct investment coup--quite impossible.

Mining firms set up shop in Orissa

The key element in this story is bauxite, the principal raw material for a much-in-demand metal—aluminium. Widely used in construction, as packaging material and for making automobile and aircraft bodies, global aluminium consumption increased from 32 million tonnes in 2005 to 35 million tonnes in 2006. It is expected to grow at similar levels in 2007, spurred largely by Chinese demand.