British mining giant Vedanta Resources' plan to operate a US$900 million refinery in eastern India hit a fresh obstacle on Friday when the Supreme Court set new conditions for the project.
Vedanta's battle to mine bauxite to feed the refinery in forests considered sacred by tribals is seen as a test case in India, pitting industrial development against the interests of locals and the environment.
The court refused to let the project in Orissa state proceed on the grounds it could hurt "sustainable development" but it offered Vedanta's Indian unit, Sterlite Industries, the chance to come up with a new plan.
The decision came just over two weeks after Norway's state pension fund withdrew US$13 million in investments in Vedanta, accusing it of "causing serious damage to people and to the environment" in India.
The court said it did not oppose the project in principle but that it needed to be assured of Vedanta's credibility as it had to protect the interests of future generations.
It said Vedanta would have to give around US$180 million in compensation for forest destruction, wildlife management and tribal development. Other conditions included handing over five percent of pre-tax profits annually from mining projects across India to the Orissa government to fund development.
The mining giant will also have to set up a "special purpose vehicle" with the Orissa state government to ensure the conditions are met, the court said.
Vedanta must file an interim application within eight weeks saying if it agrees to the conditions.
"We welcome the court's decision," said Babu Mathew, head of ActionAid India which opposes the mining plans.
But the group remained "very apprehensive" about the final outcome, saying mining operations would "cause irreversible ecological damage" and the "death and destruction of tribals," he said.
Vedanta has been fighting for three years for permission to open cast mine vast deposits of bauxite in the densely forested Niyamgiri hills to supply the refinery it has built nearby.
In the past, the company has denied any wrongdoing and argued the project would be welcomed by residents of the desperately poor region.
In a stinging 2005 report, an environmental panel set up by the Supreme Court accused Vedanta of blatantly violating environmental guidelines.
Elon Musk’s lieutenants have reached out to chip industry suppliers, including Applied Materials Inc, Tokyo Electron Ltd and Lam Research Corp, for his envisioned Terafab, early steps in an audacious and likely arduous attempt to break into the production of cutting-edge chips. Staff working for the joint venture between Tesla Inc and Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) have sought price quotes and delivery times for an array of chipmaking gear, people familiar with the matter said. In past weeks, they’ve contacted makers of photomasks, substrates, etchers, depositors, cleaning devices, testers and other tools, according to the people, who asked not to
Taichung reported the steepest fall in completed home prices among the six special municipalities in the first quarter of this year, data compiled by Taiwan Realty Co (台灣房屋) showed yesterday. From January through last month, the average transaction price for completed homes in Taichung fell 8 percent from a year earlier to NT$299,000 (US$9,483) per ping (3.3m²), said Taiwan Realty, which compiled the data based on the government’s price registration platform. The decline could be attributed to many home buyers choosing relatively affordable used homes to live in themselves, instead of newly built homes in the city’s prime property market, Taiwan Realty
JET JUICE: The war on Iran’s secondary effects have seen fuel prices skyrocket, knocking flight schedules down to earth in return as airlines struggle with costs Airline passengers should brace for more irritation in the next few months as carriers worldwide cancel flights and ground planes to cope with stratospheric increases in jet-fuel prices. Dutch flag carrier KLM is the latest company to cut its schedule, saying on Thursday that it would scrap 80 return flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in the coming month. That puts it in the same league as United Airlines Holdings Inc, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, which have all pruned itineraries to mitigate costs. Global capacity for next month has been reduced by about 3 percentage points, with all
Taiwan is attracting a growing number of foreign jobseekers as companies increasingly recruit overseas talent to ease labor shortages and expand global reach, recruitment platform 104 Job Bank (104人力銀行) said yesterday. More than 40,000 foreign nationals searched for jobs in Taiwan through the platform last year, a 28 percent increase from a year earlier, the company said. Malaysians accounted for the largest share of overseas jobseekers at 12.2 percent, followed by Indonesians at 11.9 percent and Vietnamese at 10.8 percent. Indonesian applicants surged more than 50 percent year-on-year, while Vietnamese jobseekers rose by more than 30 percent. Applicants from the
RSS