English

September 25, 2010

On the 28th of July a large group of activists campaigning against mining corporation Vedanta, http://wri-irg.org/node/8070< gather outside their AGM to protest against the wrong doing of Vedanta, especially to demand the withdraw of Vedanta from the Nyamgiri mountain in Orissa, India. Mountain that is sacred for the Dongria Kondh tribe.

Vedanta has long been criticised by activists for its cavalier attitude to environmental protection, worker safety and other issues at its operations in Africa and India, and every AGM since it was listed on the London Stock Exchange has been punctuated by protests. But as the Indian government comes close to issuing its final verdict on the mine, the protests have become noisier and more impassioned. Vedanta argues that it’s not infringing human rights and that it’s bringing wealth to the region.

The law locks up the hapless felon who steals the goose from off the common, but lets the greater felon loose who steals the common from the goose. Anonymous, England, 1821

Sunday, 21 Mar, 2010 |

Last month, quietly, unannounced, Arundhati Roy decided to visit the forbidding and forbidden precincts of Central India’s Dandakaranya Forests, home to a melange of tribespeople many of whom have taken up arms to protect their people against state-backed marauders and exploiters. She recorded in considerable detail the first face-to-face journalistic “encounter” with armed guerillas, their families and comrades, for which she combed the forests for weeks at personal risk.