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New Delhi: One of the world's most remote hill tribes will learn this week whether they face being evicted from their forest homeland to make way for an opencast bauxite mine run by one of Britain's biggest listed companies.
The battle pits Vedanta Resources, one of the largest mining companies in the world, against the Dongria Kondh, an 8,000-strong tribe in the Indian region of Orissa.
The Kondh are one of India's most isolated tribes. They believe in witch doctors and brutal animal sacrifices, and worship the mountains and forests they inhabit.
Vedanta wants to open a massive, opencast mine in their territory to produce bauxite, the chief source of aluminium. The tribe claims this will not only irreversibly destroy their revered mountain, but also a huge swathe of surrounding jungle, one of the last remaining forests in the entire drought-prone region, which is one of India's poorest.
The mountain is also the source of the Bansadhara river and a proposed elephant reserve, and is vital to ensure drinking water and irrigation for surrounding areas.
"Niyam Raja is our god,"' said Jitu Jakeskia, a Kondh activist, referring to the Niyamgiri mountains.
"It is the most important temple for the Kondh people and that is why we worship nature and have to protect it."
Others have vowed to take up arms against anyone setting foot on their land.
The battle has now reached India's Supreme Court, which will decide next week whether Sterlite, a Vedanta subsidiary, can proceed with the project.
Natural condition
Vedanta argues that the area involved is a tiny fraction of the Kondh's traditional lands, and has pledged to return it to its natural condition once the mining is over.
It has also pledged to bring health care, sanitation and education to an area so poor that many people die of preventable diseases, and where tribal members have sold their babies for as little as Rs200 (Dh17.2) to buy food.
The company claims its investment could drag thousands out of poverty. A spokesman said Vedanta had already built schools, roads, a medical centre and a hospital in the region, and taught farmers how to increase their yields. He said Vedanta, which is controlled by London-based billionaire Anil Agarwal, had collected a number of awards for its sustainable development programmes.
Survival International, a London-based pressure group, has urged Vedanta's UK shareholders - including Standard Life, Barclays Bank, HSBC and Middlesbrough and Wolverhampton councils, - to "disinvest unless Vedanta abandons its plans".
Norway has already excluded the company from its national pension fund investments, due to what they claim is "an unacceptable risk of complicity in severe environmental damage and systematic human rights violations".
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