– if not through the fields of Academe
India’s home-grown, but foreign-fed, mining supremo Anil Agarwal never lets the opportunity slip to postpone the (almost) inevitable. His UK-listed company, Vedanta, backed by the Orissa state government and local supporters, has been pressuring India’s environment ministry to reverse its decision last year to ban a 6-fold expansion of its alumina refinery in Lanjigarh. And this – even as the country’s Human Rights Commission expresses strong fears that construction of the plant has already forcibly displaced local villagers.
Meanwhile, young people in Chhattisgarh have blockaded ore shipments from Vedanta’s Mainpat bauxite mine -itself believed to supply ore to the Lanjigarh refinery. The protestors complained that, while destroying the environment, the company was neither offering them employment nor providing local infrastructure.
However, Mr Agarwal now finally seems to have failed in launching his dream university on purloined land in Orissa. India’s Supreme Court has confirmed last year’s High Court order that he quit the area.
See http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=10674.