Over a decade ago, a young IAS officer deployed in Bastar told this reporter that as much as they wanted Bastar to be freed from the Naxals, their ouster from the jungle would immediately lead to it being taken over by mining companies. Ashutosh Bhardwaj As the Maoist insurgency reaches its fag end with the… Read More As Naxalism Fades, Adivasi Futures Still Stand on Precarious Ground
By Dan Steinbock / Informed Comment New York (Special to Informed Comment) – In December 2022, Israeli Ministry of Energy launched the Fourth Offshore Bid Round offering new exploration licenses. A year later, it awarded licenses to several Israeli and international companies: Eni (Italy), Dana Petroleum (UK, a subsidiary of a South Korean company, and Ratio… Read More Whitewashing Gas Exploration in Post-Genocide Gaza
NB: Congratulations to Bonojit, a former Ramjas College student; for his groundbreaking research and activism. DS The handbook casts the Northeast as a mineral-rich periphery, that is “underexplored” and ideal for private investment. Since March this year, around 55,000 bighas of land across Assam have either been cleared or marked for eviction. Of this, only… Read More GSI’s Handbook on Northeast India Masks Extraction Behind Technicalities
REUTERS BANGKOK, June 12 (Reuters) – A Chinese-backed militia is protecting new rare earth mines in eastern Myanmar, according to four people familiar with the matter, as Beijing moves to secure control of the minerals it is wielding as a bargaining chip in its trade war with Washington. China has a near-monopoly over the processing… Read More China-backed militia secures control of new rare earth mines in Myanmar
South Africa and the internationalization of mineral extraction Duncan Money At the 2025 African Mining Indaba, leaders from across the Continent met representatives from multilateral lending institutions, energy companies, and US national security agencies to discuss how to “position mining as the continent’s foremost industry, driving sustainable investment and fostering economic growth.” The conference location, in… Read More After the Diamond Rush
New book exposes the power of oil – from colonialism, to post-Soviet Russia, to the current climate crisis Adam Hanieh Nearly four decades ago, a large team of scientists from around the world launched a major global research programme called the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP). Their goal was to study the connection between human activities and… Read More Crude capitalism: How oil greases the wheels of the world market
The group had suffered threats and harassment for years amid efforts to preserve the Guapinol and San Pedro rivers, and the Carlos Escaleras nature reserve, amid the growing presence of mining and hydro-electric companies. TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras Reuters — An environmental activist who protested mining and hydro-electric projects in northern Honduras in an effort to preserve tropical forests and rivers… Read More Honduran anti-mining activist who fought to save rivers is killed
The scale of the silicosis crisis in India is staggering. A report by the Indian Council of Medical Research in 1999 estimated that, apart from 5.4 million construction workers, 3 million workers in other industries were at high risk of silica exposure. These figures are already over two decades old, but exact current estimates are… Read More Choking to Death
The US and the UK among countries with low dependence on fossil fuels criticized for ‘hypocrisy’ on climate pledges A surge in new oil and gas exploration in 2024 threatens to unleash nearly 12bn tonnes of planet-heating emissions, with the world’s wealthiest countries – such as the US and the UK – leading a stampede… Read More Revealed: wealthy western countries lead in global oil and gas expansion
To be radical requires a theory of how this world, for all its problems, contains and is fostering the beginning of another, very different world. Jedediah Britton-Purdy All sorts of people had come to the Welsh countryside to spend the day talking about the history of labor radicalism: miners, organizers, researchers, politicians. But the star… Read More Raymond Williams’s Resources for Hope
After the truth-shower 