for its part, the company denies wrongdoing, and says that the convoluted structures of forest governance in india are to blame. a stance that the indian government is sympathetic towards, and has consequently been asking the Supreme Court to levy penalties but regularise the project.
in the process, however, a terribly important question has been raised.
By mining limestone without a forest clearance, the company had violated the Forest Conservation Act and possibly the Environment Protection Act as well. Now… the Indian government is trying to regularise the project… The implications are unnerving. In part because if the government’s proposal is accepted by the Supreme Court, it will create a precedent where any company can win clearances on the basis of misleading affidavits and later press for regularisation. And in part because the government evidently thinks it can apply India’s laws selectively.
[…] Lafarge’s plan to set up a Rs 900-crore cement plant in Himachal has run into environmental trouble with the National Environmental Appellate Authority quashing the clearance granted to the project by environment ministry in June 2009. More here. The curious thing is this. The NEAA order quashing the clearance said Lafarge erroneously represented the mining area as ‘uncultivable’. which is the same charge against the company’s limestone mining operations in meghalaya. […]
I am an Indian journalist with interests in energy, environment, climate and India’s ongoing slide into right-wing authoritarianism. My book, Despite the State, an examination of pervasive state failure and democratic decay in India, was published by Westland Publications, India, in January 2021. My work has won the Bala Kailasam Memorial Award; the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award; and five Shriram Awards for Excellence in Financial Journalism. Write to me at despitethestate@protonmail.com.
“Westland closure: Titles that are selling fast and a few personal recommendations,” by Chetana Divya Vasudev, Moneycontrol. (Because this happened too. In February, a year after DtS was released, Amazon decided to shutter Westland, which published the book. The announcement saw folks rushing to buy copies of Westland books before stocks run out.)
Fractured/Earth 
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