Battle over Essar-led project reflects India’s new mining pains

Local villagers in Madhya Pradesh's Singrauli district have vowed to fight plans by Mahan Coal Ltd (MCL) - jointly owned by London-listed Essar Energy Plc and the Aditya Birla-owned Hindalco Industries Ltd - to mine part of the 1,000-square-km (385-square-mile) woods for coal.
"This forest is our life. We get everything from it," says a local, adding, "Whatever compensation the company is offering us, we do not want it. We will fight until we die, if that's what it takes." (Reuters)

For the villagers, the timber, leaves and seeds of this centuries-old forest not only sustain his family of five, they represent a vital part of his community's cultural identity that has suddenly come under threat from two of India's largest mining companies. (Reuters)

It is a sentiment shared by many villagers in this dusty corner of Madhya Pradesh state, a sign of growing popular resistance spurred by a new forest law that gives people a greater say over how natural resources are exploited. (Reuters)

What happens at Mahan could determine if anti-mining campaigns will increasingly seek a legal recourse under the new law, underscoring a new twist in the challenges facing India's quest for energy security and its industrial future. (Reuters)

Hundreds of projects are stuck over similar local oppostion, where protests often turn violent, including more than two dozen multi-billion dollar proposals. (Reuters)

Aam Aadmi Party candidate Gul Panag campaigned in the Union territory's rural areas for the April 10 parliamentary election and interacted with the villagers. The 35-year-old former Miss India spent the first half of the day in village Malloya. (PTI)

She keenly listened to the villagers, some of whom conveyed their anguish over the alleged poor state of government medical facilities in the village. Gul campaigned door-to-door in the Gwala colony near Malloya. "My vision for the villages in Chandigarh is to see them developed and transformed into mini-townships as compared to their current state of being under-developed and grossly neglected areas of the city," she said. (PTI)

Locals set afire a house at Jaldapara forest in Alipurduar, West Bengal in protest against beating up of a boy by forest officials for entering inside a protected forest area. (PTI)

Security men walk past an overturned vehicle after locals ransacked Jaldapara forest in Alipurduar, West Bengal. (PTI)