Thursday, June 18, 2009

Himachal protest against Vedanta: Watch Video

If you remember the strange case of Vedanta Alumina being awarded The "Golden Peacock Environmental Management Award", here is a video of people in Himachal Pradesh protesting the giving of this award.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0o1PhmTjEQ
The protest was in Palampur at the foot of the Dhauladhar, where World Environment Foundation was planning to award Vedanta for its "incredible environmental performance" in Lanjigarh. We had posted an earlier post with all the relevant links and reports which illustrates Vedanta's acheivements in this field, and which has prompted sufferers of Vedanta's environmental doings in Tamilnadu to award them the "Ravaged Peacock Award"

The interesting thing is that the CM of Himachal, after being presented the dossier of Vedanta's environmental record refused to attend the award giving ceremony and so did the rest of HP government. I wish our own Naveen Babu would have shown similar considerations for our Orissa's environment and his Dongaria Kondhs.

Another interesting thing is that Himachal's newspapers all were full of the misdeeds of Vedanta. How unlike our newspapers in Orissa, growing fat on corporate advertisement, who never mention the misdeeds of Vedanta but only sing their praise (see the Statesman's Orissa page for almost a daily slew of press release on Vedanta's CSR - I suppose the CSR also applies to the press and its correspondents). Maybe some shame would be in order.

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