A dispossessed village leader describes the hardships faced by him and his family despite financial ‘compensation’ for land acquired for an Adani coal project. He warns other villagers facing the same fate from the next Adani coal project not to accept company promises but to keep fighting for their rights.
Ramal Kariyam, a village leader in India’s Hasdeo forests, describes how his community is standing up to Adani and the authorities, despite unwarranted detentions and an arson attack.
Sunita Porte, a tribal leader of the struggle to protect the Hasdeo forests from Adani’s coal mines, tells of her narrow escape from police on the day that other village leaders were taken into custody in the dead of night. While village leaders were detained without charge, the forest was felled by the Adani company.
Alok Shukla, defender of the Hasdeo forests and its people, receives the prestigious Goldman Award, May 2024. Abir Dasgupta interviews him for AdaniWatch. The Adani Group operates a coal mine in the forests and is attempting to develop more, despite the opposition of people who depend on the forests for their livelihoods and way of life.
Chaotic scenes as authorities try to strong-arm village approval for Adani coal-mine expansion. The Adivasi tribal residents of the Hasdeo Aranya forest in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh are dealing with a mix of good and bad news. On the one hand, they have reason to celebrate as an interim order by the Chhattisgarh State Scheduled Tribes (ST) Commission has temporarily put a stop to a coal mine being opened in the Parsa coal block, which is adjacent to the PEKB coal deposit.
Fresh evidence surfaces in the decade-long probe into “over-invoicing” of coal imports totalling over Rs. 35,000 crore by corporates including Adani. This scam’s main victim was the public at large rather than the government’s coffers. The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) had found evidence that over 40 companies were over-charging for coal that was imported and sold to thermal power plants across the country.
The website of the Supreme Court-ordered Pegasus investigation committee headed by former Supreme Court Judge Justice R V Raveendran has deleted depositions made to it and has started posting spam content. The Pegasus investigation had revealed that thousands of individuals all over the world may have had their mobile phones targeted for hacking using the Pegasus software suite, which is developed by Israel’s NSO Group.
An import-duty on solar equipment that the Indian government imposed following lobbying led by the Adani Group has been a public-policy disaster. The policy was designed to protect India’s domestic manufacturing of solar panels. But it has failed in that objective and slowed down India’s transition to renewable energy. A duty-evasion scheme has allegedly defrauded the government of at least $228 million. The price of solar power in India has increased. More coal is being burned. And associated court rulings may cost Adani Green over US $100 million.
Beyond trade-offs and extortion, the scheme goes to the very heart of the Sangh Parivar’s long-term goal of an ideological dictatorship. The striking down of the electoral bonds scheme by the Supreme Court was no doubt a blow in favour of democracy and against this totalitarian march. It is this vision that the electoral bonds scheme served.
