Sterlite protest: How it began; what next

There is no need to look for conspiracies by local or international troublemakers

On May 22, 2018, as people protested against the Vedanta-owned Sterlite copper·plant in Tamil Nadu, police opened fire on a rally  which marked the 100th day of demonstrations. A total of 13 people were killed and many more were wounded. The protests are against the waste produced by copper smelting.

Vedanta, the company that was operating the plant, was famously stopped in 2013 from bauxite mining in the Niyamgiri Hills in Odisha – at that time the decisive instrument was consultations in the local adivasi villages.

Industrial economy requires raw materials of different kinds. It also produces waste. In technical terms, we