25,000 blockade world’s longest dam in India

Sol­i­dar­i­ty would be huge­ly appre­ci­at­ed as Indi­a’s Supreme Court looks like it is going to rule in favour of min­ing cor­po­ra­tion Vedan­ta to be able to mine the Niyami­giri Hills in Oris­sa, which will mean the death of thou­sands of peo­ple and will set a prece­dent for the min­ing of all of Indi­a’s forests.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty would be huge­ly appre­ci­at­ed as Indi­a’s Supreme Court looks like it is going to rule in favour of min­ing cor­po­ra­tion Vedan­ta to be able to mine the Niyami­giri Hills in Oris­sa, which will mean the death of thou­sands of peo­ple and will set a prece­dent for the min­ing of all of Indi­a’s forests.

25,000 farm­ers are to form a human chain around one of the worlds largest dams in protest against devel­op­ment by British min­ing cor­po­ra­tion Vedan­ta Resources PLC. Cen­tral to the con­flict are issues over water allo­ca­tion to the alu­mini­um indus­try and a baux­ite min­ing project whose effects Indi­a’s Supreme Court have been warned by its own inves­ti­ga­to­ry com­mit­tee would lead to “cul­tur­al geno­cide.” [1]

Farm­ers in Indi­a’s poor­est state, Oris­sa, have grad­u­al­ly been los­ing the right to water from the Hirakud dam since it began to irri­gate and pro­duce ener­gy for the region in 1947. Whilst they claim that today only 25% of their fields receive any irri­ga­tion, allo­ca­tion of water to heavy indus­try has increased by over 27 times with­in the past ten years. [2] The major bene­fac­tor of this is the alu­mini­um indus­try, Hin­dal­co and Vedan­ta, present in Oris­sa due to its rich baux­ite deposits [alu­mini­um ore] and the huge amount of water avail­able from the Hirakud dam. [3]

Vedan­ta is cur­rent­ly on the crux of win­ning a legal bat­tle grant­i­ng it the right to mine three mil­lion tonnes of baux­ite from the most bio­di­verse for­est region in Oris­sa, the Niyam­giri hills. The min­ing threat­ens many rare species of ani­mals and plants which inhab­it the region, as well as the exis­tence of an entire trib­al pop­u­la­tion, the Don­garia Kondhs.

Today is the lat­est con­fronta­tion between dif­fer­ent inter­est groups in a ‘water war’ which reflects grow­ing glob­al con­flicts over water short­ages in a dry­ing plan­et. Police have fired on and killed demon­stra­tors in pre­vi­ous mass protests in Oris­sa and it is like­ly that fol­low­ing the recent con­tentious pro-Vedan­ta deci­sions of Indi­a’s Supreme Court, con­flicts may well become more heat­ed.

Feel like ring­ing up Vedan­ta to tell them to screw them­selves? Good!

investorrelations@vedantaresources.com

Sumanth Cidambi
Asso­ciate Direc­tor Investor Rela­tions
Tele­phone: +91 22 6646 1444

Vedan­ta Resources plc
16 Berke­ley Street
Lon­don W1J 8DZ

Robin Walk­er & Faeth Birch

Fins­bury Com­mu­ni­ca­tions
52–58 Taber­na­cle Street
Lon­don
EC2A 4NJ

Tele­phone: +44 (0) 20 7251 3801

tak­en from http://www.vedantaresources.com/contactus.htm