An indigenous tribe in India has won a stunning victory over one of the world's biggest mining companies. In an unprecedented move, India's Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh has blocked Vedanta Resources' controversial plan to mine bauxite on the sacred hills of the Dongria Kondh tribe. 
Ramesh said Vedanta has shown a "shocking" and "blatant disregard for the rights of the tribal groups." The Minister has also questioned the legality of the massive refinery Vedanta has already built below the hills.
 The news is a crushing defeat for Indian billionaire Anil Agarwal, Vedanta's majority owner and founder.


While assistance is being provided to hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis affected by the country's worst flooding within memory, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a new report Aug. 12 that relief supplies are reaching only a fraction of the millions who need help. The report says that more than 14 million—nearly one in every 10 Pakistanis—are affected by the flooding, which began in late July due to heavy monsoon rains. The official death toll has risen to 1,343, with 1,588 people now reported injured. At least two million have been left homeless.

Thousands of protesters again filled the streets in Indian-controlled Kashmir Aug. 13 after security forces killed four and injured at least eight others for defying a curfew. In the northern town of Pattan, troops enforcing the curfew reportedly killed a 65-year-old man. In Sopore, a large crowd gathered after Friday prayer services and threw stones at a camp occupied by Indian paramilitary troops, who opened fire, killing two. In Kupwara, police fired on a crowd of 2,000 who had gathered in defiance of the curfew, killing a 23-year-old man. In Srinagar, the regional capital, officials did not impose a curfew for fear of sparking further, and Friday prayer services were held at the city's historic mosque for the first time in six weeks. (NYT, AP, Aug. 13)

The paramilitary Rapid Action Force is still patrolling Srinagar even as a curfew has been lifted elsewhere in Indian-controlled Kashmir after days of deadly riots across the territory finally subsided Aug. 6. The death toll of civilians since the new unrest began June 11 now stands at 50. Meanwhile, the disastrous floods that have devastated much of Pakistan hit Kashmir, with at least 130 killed, hundreds more injured, and rescue efforts ongoing. (VOA, Hindustan Times, Aug. 7; Hindustan Times, Aug. 6)

Two people were killed June 28 as Indian security forces fired on protesters at various places around the Kashmir Valley. Eight Kashmiri civilians have now been killed in incidents involving Indian security forces in less than three weeks. Local Muslim leaders have called a campaign of civil disobedience to demand repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which permits India's security forces in Kashmir to use force with wide latitude. (World Bulletin, Hindustan Times, NYT, June 28)

Indian troops on June 21 fired on hundreds of protesters who threw rocks at security forces, surrounded an armored vehicle and tried to torch a paramilitary bunker in Srinagar, Kashmir. One protester was killed and at least five wounded. The incident began with a demonstration over the death of a 25-year-old man who succumbed to injuries a day earlier after being beaten by soldiers in a street protest the previous week. The demonstration swelled after the shots were fired, when hundreds more people poured into the streets, chanting, "We want freedom" and "Indian forces leave Kashmir." (Daily Times, Pakistan, June 21)

Two peasant protesters were injured in a police charge while blocking the entry of survey teams for an industrial project into Nuagaon village in Jagatsinghpur district of India's Orissa state on June 2. The violence came five days after talks opened between the state government and local residents opposed to a proposed steel plant to be built by South Korean major Posco. Hundreds of villagers blocking a road at Balitutha were similarly charged by police on May 15, leaving several injured. (The Telegraph, Calcutta, Kalinga Times, Odisha, June 2; Sanhati, May 19)

Teams of gunmen and suicide bombers simultaneously attacked two mosques packed with hundreds of worshippers from the minority Ahmadiyya sect in two different districts of Lahore during Friday prayers May 28, taking hundreds of hostages and battling the police as authorities responded. Some 80 worshippers were killed, and dozens wounded in the worst attack ever against the Ahmadi sect. One attacker was killed and two were arrested; the remainder, numbered at some 10, presumably escaped. At least one of the detained had a suicide belt. Tehreek-e-Taliban Punjab claimed responsibility for the attacks, Pakistani TV reported. (AP, NYT, The Financial, May 28)