Vedanta’s Lanjigarh refinery started a school, a child care centre and constructed roads inside Niyamgiri, as part of its corporate social responsibility, to ease entry for its bauxite mining project. The CSR project was abandoned due to stiff resistance from the locals (Photo by Sayantan Bera)
A goods trains shunted at the Bissamcuttack station. In the backdrop is the Niyamgiri range (Photo: Sayantan Bera)
Dongria Kondh from Kesarpadi village inside Niyamgiri forests worships mango kernels on the eve of palli sabha to decide on Vedanta’s bauxite mining proposal (Photo: Sayantan Bera)
Writing on the walls of the Vedanta refinery in Lanjigarh. Proposed bauxite mining in 660 ha will wipe out much of the 721 ha of forests in the Niyamgiri, the source of sustenance of the Dongria Kondh and other forest dwellers (Photo by Sayantan Bera)
Tribals press their point with Rayagada district judge Sarat Chandra Misra on the expanse of their habitat inside Niyamgiri hills. Serkapadi palli sabha, July 18 (Photo: Sayantan Bera)
The conveyor belt to transport bauxite from inside the Niyamgiris gathers rust next to the Lanjigarh refinery of Vedanta. The company illegally constructed the conveyor belt between 2008 and 2010 without the necessary forest clearance (Photo by Sayantan Bera)
One of the over 100 perennial streams that originate from the Niyamgiri hill range (Photo: Sayantan Bera)
Perennial stream on way to Kesarpadi village. The state government hurriedly settled community claims to the forests in the village. for instance between 0.5 to an acre for perennial streams (Photo: Sayantan Bera)
Residents of Lakhpadar village in Niyamgiri hills drew this map in 2010 to claim their rights over forest resources and places of worship. The Odisha government is yet to settle their claim (Photo by Sayantan Bera)
District judge of Rayagada, Sarat Chandra Misra, present at the palli sabha, argues with the tribals, sidestepping his role as the Supreme Court Observer. Soon after he told the tribals, “all of you are acting very smart despite being illiterate. You would have sold the country were you educated" (Photo: Sayantan Bera)
The bejuni, village priestess of Lakhpadar, offers ritual sacrifices to appease Niyamraja before small patches of forests are felled for shift and burn cultivation (Photo by Sayantan Bera)
A Dongria Kondh girl from Kadraguma village in Rayagada district reacts to the camera (Photo by Sayantan Bera)
Niyamgiri ranges seen from Bissamcuttack railway station in Rayagada district, Odisha. The forest dwellers crowd the station in the morning to sell pineapples, mangoes and jackfruit grown in the forests (Photo: Sayantan Bera)
Dongria Kondh women painted on the walls of Vedanta Alumina's refinery in Lanjigarh, on the foothills of Niyamgiri. Stiff resistance from forest dwellers have prevented Vedanta from mining the Niyamgiri Hill ranges for Bauxite (Photo by Sayantan Bera)
A young state police recruit talks in Kui with the locals at the Serkapadi palli sabha. The palli sabha was held amidst tight security (Photo: Sayantan Bera)
Wild mushrooms collected from the forests of Niyamgiri hills (Photo by Sayantan Bera)
The forests inside the Niyamgiris sustain 53 varieties of crops cultivated without any chemical inputs alongside 273 varieties of wild food (Photo by Sayantan Bera)
A Dongria Kondh woman at Bissamcuttack railway station. The goods train loaded with coal supplies to the alumina complex of NALCO in Damanjodi, Koraput district (Photo: Sayantan Bera)
Women from faraway Dongria Kondh villages watched the proceedings of Serkapadi palli sabha from outside the meeting venue (Photo: Sayantan Bera)
Women workers return from Vedanta’s alumina refinery in Lanjigarh on the foothills of Niyamgiri (Photo by Sayantan Bera)
A Dongria Kondh woman takes to the mike at the July 18 palli sabha in Serkapadi village. It was the first of the 12 villages chosen by Odisha government for public consultations on the proposal to mine Niyamgiri hills for Vedanta's alumina factory in Lanjigarh. The meetings are being held under the directions of the Supreme Court, which said in April this year that local people will take a final decision on the fate of mining (Photo: Sayantan Bera)