[Chitrangada Choudhury]

“How is this a public hearing? Who are they hearing? The police or the barbed wires they have put to keep us out?” :Adivasi farmer Banu Nandibali 

For 15 years, in lush bauxite-rich Koraput, locals, mainly Adivasi and Dalit, have opposed Hindalco’s Mali Parbat mine. In 2019, Odisha’s Naveen Patnaik government renewed the lease to 50 years. Ahead of a crucial public hearing for environmental clearance, it jailed 28 villagers, including a class-eight Adivasi school student, on a raft of charges & deployed police across the area to illegally block villagers from attending the hearing.

https://article-14.com/post/how-odisha-government-kept-the-public-out-of-a-public-hearing-for-a-bauxite-mine-619f0831a5c44