“ Located in Angul district, home to one of the country’s largest coal deposits, the proposed coal block contains an estimated 12 million tonnes of coal and a life of 48 years. The mineral lies beneath 7,500 acres of a thriving agrarian economy across nine villages. These are home to more than 10,000 people, whose education and relative prosperity put them in the rural middle class, with capabilities and resources to assert their rights. As has been the case so often, rural India’s forests, farms, mountains and water bodies have to make way for open-cast mines to fuel urban India, with little attention paid to the corruption, conflicts and injustices these transitions produce.“
Posted on: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 14:46:07 +0000