prasad1
Active member
The anti-Sterlite protest in Tuticorin is not the first in which citizens have taken on a company on the issue of pollution and human rights. It won’t be the last either, unless corporations learn to follow India’s green norms and respect human rights, and, more importantly, the State implements the laws in letter and spirit.
Sterlite Industries,a copper product manufacturing company, is owned by Vedanta Resources Plc, a London-based natural resources company. The mother ship was in the news a couple of years ago, thanks to similar violations at Niyamgiri, the site of bauxite mines, and also at its bauxite refining and aluminium smelting plant at Lanjigarh, both in Odisha.
Tuticorin and Niyamgiri-Lanjigarh have made it to the national headlines, but there are several ongoing low-intensity community protests against mining companies that we don’t even hear about. For example, last week, residents of the Dabal gram panchayat at Margao, Goa, which has iron ore mines, protested against mining companies for polluting their water and air, and the State for failing to do address this.
One has to just log on to the Environment Justice Atlas (https://ejatlas.org/country/india) and count the number of ongoing conflicts between the people and the State/companies in India. Most of these protests are borne out of the nagging feeling that people have got nothing while they have paid a high cost of mining activities. In the last one year, tribal communities of mineral-rich Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh have revived a traditional movement (Pathalgari), demanding control of natural resources from the State. As expected, both states view the protesting tribals as criminals, missing the moot point: the trust in the State to bring development and ensure justice — similar to what protesters in Tuticorin must have felt — is fast eroding.
The State, however, has enough institutions, laws and funds to counter such apprehensions of the people. But more often than not, it fails to use them judiciously and effectively, leading to an atmosphere of distrust.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/anal...le-in-india/story-WKOVrSxzRUfX3nMTT5A5KO.html
India is not China, we have political parties and people who demand Human rights.
Sterlite Industries,a copper product manufacturing company, is owned by Vedanta Resources Plc, a London-based natural resources company. The mother ship was in the news a couple of years ago, thanks to similar violations at Niyamgiri, the site of bauxite mines, and also at its bauxite refining and aluminium smelting plant at Lanjigarh, both in Odisha.
Tuticorin and Niyamgiri-Lanjigarh have made it to the national headlines, but there are several ongoing low-intensity community protests against mining companies that we don’t even hear about. For example, last week, residents of the Dabal gram panchayat at Margao, Goa, which has iron ore mines, protested against mining companies for polluting their water and air, and the State for failing to do address this.
One has to just log on to the Environment Justice Atlas (https://ejatlas.org/country/india) and count the number of ongoing conflicts between the people and the State/companies in India. Most of these protests are borne out of the nagging feeling that people have got nothing while they have paid a high cost of mining activities. In the last one year, tribal communities of mineral-rich Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh have revived a traditional movement (Pathalgari), demanding control of natural resources from the State. As expected, both states view the protesting tribals as criminals, missing the moot point: the trust in the State to bring development and ensure justice — similar to what protesters in Tuticorin must have felt — is fast eroding.
The State, however, has enough institutions, laws and funds to counter such apprehensions of the people. But more often than not, it fails to use them judiciously and effectively, leading to an atmosphere of distrust.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/anal...le-in-india/story-WKOVrSxzRUfX3nMTT5A5KO.html
India is not China, we have political parties and people who demand Human rights.