 Everyone here, I'm Jens Lehergen from Development Studies here at Sorbers, and if you ask me if I am a chair to this event. We are of course very pleased to do because it means I have the pleasure of welcoming Aruna Tchaedersseker here tonight. She is, as you probably all know, an independent journalist and researcher from Bangalore. And since the last, nearly 10 years, since 2011, she has worked on underreported land and environmental companies in India. She has worked with a nationwide alliance of mining affected communities, and she has joined Amnesty International, India as a senior researcher on business and human rights with a focus on indigenous land back by state owned co-companies. Her work has, as many of you will know, appeared in the wire, scroll.in, New York Times, the Hindu, et cetera, et cetera. And it has been recognized by my press club, the Three Round Financial Journalism Award and Trace International. So it's my pleasure to welcome you tonight and listen to your talk for the next 40 minutes. Thank you so much. Thanks for showing up. I think we have a few more stragglers. Hey, welcome. So it's really, really great to have you. Namaskar. Hopefully no thermal power. And it's amazing to be here in what is described as London's GNU. For those of you who don't know GNU, it's one of our extremely politically active colleges that's in trouble. But it's amazing focus on social sciences and, you know, and questioning and raising truth to power. So it's great to be in SOAS. I actually wanted to be here, part of your courses. But I was afraid of being re-traumatized through discussions around looking at colonialism, looking at violence and development and conflict. So instead I chose to go to Oxford to be terrified by the climate crisis. Not a great option. But on that extremely dire note, yeah, happy Halloween. Well, I'm so glad so many of you couldn't make it. And the fact that we're here today to talk about one of my favorite subjects or one that's led me on something of a journey, which is natural resources and coal and corruption and all the seas and conflict and caste and looking at how there has been a rise of what we call or what I call a contract raj. So yeah, to kind of give you a kind of context, how did I end up there staring deeply into the abyss in my early 20s? Okay, not quite Greta, still led on a journey into my own consumption. Because to give you some sort of background, I was a journalist. I was trained in the media doing a job that I really didn't like in Bombay, which included pushing Bollywood videos. So yeah, that was literally another kind of a pit. And started looking at human rights research can also begin through Facebook stalking. So I looked at a friend of mine was taking photos of Operation Green Hunt, which some of you may know was described as one of the greatest threats internal security threats. But at the same time, these were the first times that we were looking at images coming out of places. And I was like, who were these people? Who are these communities? Why had I never heard of them? Why had I never been acquainted with their histories? Why had I never seen these struggles over minerals, over looking at land and forest? And so the same journalist that I Facebook stalked gave me a great piece of advice is that you can speak a bunch of different languages, what the hell are you doing in Bombay? And so I landed up in back in my home in the east coast of Andhra Pradesh and started an inquiry into my own consumption. And so many of these things are questions that we don't ask ourselves in three decades of liberalization in India. We're like, okay, now you can order food to your home, you can take an Uber, best times of our lives. But I had somehow decided to inquire into where did food come from? Where was my water coming from? Where was our energy coming from? And trying to confront this other unknown reality of who were these communities which is kind of what led me to staring into some of the biggest coal mines in central India. Now, how many of you are familiar with the great Niamgiri struggle? Can I see some? Yay, this is great. How much of that had to do with the film Avatar? Great, you've proven my point. It was ridiculous, the idea that we have to otherize people in such a way to point out very basic conflicts. But Niamgiri was where I started my exploration and it was a classic case of a UK based Madhya National Company and with mining operations across the world, Header by an Indian, and exploiting communities and trying to push them out. Which was kind of a very classic model of captive resources. Now, if you're going to look at coal on the other hand, and it was that argument of keeping the bauxite in the ground. Now, what's happened is a very different situation where they didn't get the mine, they didn't get that mine, but the state is now providing them a long term supply of bauxite. So in which the state becomes the sort of contractor. Now, another area, which is where we're looking at places that were already being mined. So it was a classic question of, okay, and I wanted to see that for myself. I wanted to see, okay, and that was part of my research at Amnesty, of looking at existing mines. How different is it from this very question of, you know, and energy, especially given India's energy needs, knowing that how is that tied to land. So this was kind of the very classic model of coal expansion, where coal is a holy cow. We don't question these things. Well, I spotted some cows hanging around there. They were almost done over by mining trucks, but nobody talks about that. There are no cow protectionist squads trying to protect pastoral land. But looking at national interest and eminent domain and state owned, we call it geological colonialism, or I call it karmic geology, because a lot of the mining officials I spoke to were like, madam, the mineral cannot be moved, but you can definitely remove the people. So the idea that, you know, that if there exists coal beneath the land, then it can be property of the state. And that's national interest. So for instance, how is kind of land acquired? Okay, potential security concern. Everywhere I go, they tell me this. Let's see what happens now. Chrome, do your thing. Here we go. 30 days to object to it. 4. Acquire the land by issuing another notice of a visit. Talk about the side-to-side. The land is now yours. Mining cannot begin without an environmental clearance. You need to conduct a public hearing. 5. So conduct a public hearing. 8. Do not use a wage on the effective vintage. Making it harder for people to attend. Do as little as you need to be required about the side. 6. Send an environmental impact assessment report to the penchite office in a language they can't understand. 7. At the hearing, fill the horrid outsiders and your own staff. 8. If any locals do show up, don't give them a chance to meet. 9. Intimidate them by police presence. 10. If an effective person gets a chance to speak, ignore it. Next, you need to get a clearance for all that forest land you want to mine. 11. Go on for a special vintage assembly. 12. Don't meet people with adequate information about their rights and impact on mining. 13. Don't record the assembly on video. 14. Confuse the community by using a loophole and disinfecting logs. 15. Ignore the checks on the source activity. 16. Take the time to provide compensation, rehabilitation, and a peace settlement. 17. Inform the media and public about the expansions and production targets. 18. Use phrases like go, shortage, and national interest to justify your action. 19. Now you can begin mining for coal. 20. Repeat. 1 village at a time. 21. Form the steps described in this video are very real. 22. The steps actually are taken by the several different bodies, including state police, 23. The central ministry of coal, the ministry of environmental forest, and the companies involved. 24. Many of these steps have been documented. So before I plug my former organization, I'm going to switch back to our presentation. But yeah, so in essence, this is how, essentially, if you're looking at, stay toned and press slide show again, right? Okay, cool. Yeah, so essentially this is how coal is acquired by the ministry of coal. Saying that all you have to do, three notices in a gazette. I had never read a gazette before. I didn't know it existed. Talking about communities where literacy rates were around less than 40%. And of course, looking at the fact that they were never publicized. All you can do is issue a notice. And the next thing you know, the land from today until the end of time belongs to the state. And that is the principle of eminent domain. And this continues to this day. So one of the things that we did look at was this phenomenon of how can this coal bearing areas act, which allows India to forcibly acquire and looking at evictions and so on. All of that kind of take place. So the impacts of that are definitely there. I can show you some of the above. But what happened is an especially significant was the fact that India had mentioned that it wanted to continue a domestic expansion for coal. Saying we will increase coal production in our existing mines. We want to hit 1.5 billion tons. Now the thing is that most people don't look at what is that land footprint. And how many acres of land. So you were talking about indigenous land. Very comfortable overlap between areas that should not be mined under the constitution under indigenous laws against the fifth schedule of India's constitution and where the coal feels like. Well, as we said, karmic geology. Unfortunately, these are the places where the deposits lie and the government can push it. Which is one of the reasons why we chose to focus on it. And also mining, coal mining in India is very land intensive. It's called strip mining, opencast mining. Set off the blasts. Like for instance, yeah. So this is Kuskonda. I don't know how grainy it is. So this is a VR film that we made. It's a toggle around. So this is at least around 3000 hectares. That's us. We flew a drone over a minus the blast was going off to kind of capture what is this 360 view. And these are some of the things that people don't really. So that is Nirupa by I met her in 2014 in February by 2016. Her village had entirely disappeared. And the same happened with two of the other mines. I mean that idea of doing research and having case studies that disappear before your eyes. And being a witness to something like that. But I think what kind of came through with this was the idea that okay. And it was a state narrative. You had coal India has a rehabilitation policy that says for every two acres of land, you get a job. Which is why people gave up their lands in the first place. The idea that the state does provide welfare rehabilitation resettlement is well, pardon my French, but shite. But at the same time, it's better than any private company that exists. So a lot of people are secretly pro coal India. Lots of communities are. But the fact is now initially when you started this, they were not as machine intensive. So you could, you needed people. Now there's a backlog of around 20 years and 30 years where people have not been given their jobs. So the only way that they are responding is by shutting down and shutting the dispatch. Because the Modi government has also been working to do away with those public hearings we saw in the video. It has changed the laws to say that for mine expansions, you don't need to talk to affected people. And whatever you say consent is one thing. But if you've already acquired their land under national interest saying, well, hello Gazette, all of your bases are belong to us. Then there's no real need for consent. But the picture slightly changed from here going. So that if you want to look at the map of Chhattisgarh, which is central union state, everybody hears about the Maoist conflict. Lots of people have written about it. That's South Chhattisgarh. That's Buster. This is coal land is where essentially there are no militarized movements. There has been mining for so long that people have been broken. But at the same time, there is now, they are now in the second week of resistance for this. So this is Hasdev Aranya. Hasdev Aranya is one of the most last contiguous stretches of dense forest left in central India. So you can see all the different three levels that are there. Water from here, it is a watershed that provides water for around 400,000 people in around the area. It comes down to the water from here goes past that mine that we just saw. In fact, a few days ago, the river changed course and went into the mine. So you could see that as another form of nature does its own thing and Karma somehow comes back to bite you. But at the same time, Hasdev Aranya. Seen as a no-go forest, communities live here. At least six or seven indigenous communities were particularly vulnerable. So here's the deal. What Hasdev Aranya meant? How did a forest which was no-go completely off-board for mining become all systems go get in there? Now you can focus on the text, but I can just like kind of take you through it. So in 2006, with BJP Congress governments both taking turns, essentially Rajasthan's power utility says, well, we want to mine. We need coal for our power plants. We want to go and burn this in Rajasthan. They start tendering bids. They say we want a firm to come and help us do this. So now a completely unknown firm at the time, no mining experience. Remember, if Hasdev Aranya is here, the forest is here, the mines operated by coal India are in the foothills. Technically you could buy coal from the state, which is what lots of people were doing for your power plants, and at a discounted rate if you're a state owned company. What Rajasthan did is like, no, we want to get somebody else to mine for us. And that somebody, that very special somebody is now a very significant somebody, which is the Adani group. So what they did was essentially tender it out. They won the bid. But they had a kind of joint venture ratio, which is 74% contractor, 26% state. Well, you're losing a lot of power in the equation. But while this was won, there was a joint study and the Ministry of Coal and the Ministry of Environment did a study in which they deemed this forest completely off limits for mining. And which goes to, I mean, there's a tremendous elephant habitat here, communities here, water shed here. The Ministry's, the environmental ministry's own experts said, well, we are not going to allow forests to be diverted over here. So, but then our very well-known green, Mr. Jairam Ramesh, who congress minister, opposition, you know, makes his living, doing speaking tours, talking about India's environment. He was the one to kind of green light mining here, saying, well, this is an exception because this is a fringe area of the forest. Now, what is a fringe and what is actually part of the forest? Women here with nice fringes, I'm sure you will agree that it's all part of the same. How this was determined is also up for question. So he granted a clearance and so which allowed the first couple of firms to mine. One was Rajasthan's Power Utility. The other is our beloved Vedanta. Vedanta also has had a coal mine over there as well. I mean, there was a small, it was like Prakash Industries now operated by Vedanta. But Prakash Industries, these other contractors are not sexy enough names, which is the unfortunate case. We only know the big ones. So yeah, so lawyer named Sudeep Srivastava challenged this in the green tribunal and Adani began mining. The green tribunal was like, hold on a minute, this is Ecoside, suspend the clearance, rework the entire proposal, what the hell are you doing? But, well, Rajasthan, not Adani, the smallest stakeholder goes to the Supreme Court, says hold on a minute, and the Supreme Court is like, wait, let's reassess what's happening here. Meanwhile, continue to mine. Now, I mean, we are in 2019 and they're continuing to mine. But soon after they said this, they were like, wait, hold on a minute, what happened was this massive coal scam judgment. My smile, well, I couldn't stop grinning, 214 coal mine leases. In one fell swoop, I'm like, this is the kind of domino effect that we definitely needed to look at because well, in the early days of coal, anybody could get a coal block. This is an Ayurvedic company called Baidyanath, which makes a male performance enhancing tablets called Vitax Gold. They got a coal block. What are you guys going to do with a coal block? I mean, everybody and their third cousin got a coal block because their third uncle was a minister. And the massive lobbying that happened for everybody to get a coal block, don't be fooled by the blocks that I got. And yeah, so they got coal blocks and which is when the Supreme Court and some really good friends who are journalists broke the scam saying, wait, did you even think about it? Can you even mine, bro? So essentially the Supreme Court was like, this is totally arbitrary lack of application of mine, which is a great way to describe the kind of coal rush insanity. Stuck this down and said no. So the Modi government was like, no, no, we're going to go the auction way, right? Everyone's going to bid. This is going to come through whoever bids wins. Did work very well. Lots of cartelization, lots of guys who had these blocks in the first place, they got them back because they were like, we have sentimental attachment, our power plants are here, etc. But in some cases, what the law did create this exception for was the fact that you can form joint venture companies like state-owned corporations could have blocks allotted to them, right? So you could be a power utility from Maharashtra, from Gujarat and still I like this block. I kind of think it has the perfect kind of reserves. Yeah, look at it on, look at its tinder bio and be like, I want that one and have it allotted to you in a very discretionary basis. And you can mine the hell out of it. But which goes to show that it's no longer transparent. What is this signal to private companies, the fact that it's much easier to go via the state than to participate in an auction process? Because what if you were to get a block which is nowhere close to where your power plant is? Which is why and what you have to go through all of these laws, including India's land acquisition law that says you have to take consent three times at the starting, find out what people think about it, you know, do a study on how many tribes live here, what are their backgrounds, how many Dalits are here, who will have how much land, major problem, right? It already sounds like if you were coal-barring, you'd be like, nah, that's not something that I want to do. Which is exactly how the Adhanis found. So not only, but Rajasthan got that block back. They essentially allotted the same block back. Adhani continued to hold stake. The government of Chhattisgarh cancelled the forest rights of the community saying that, well, it's kind of getting in the way of mining, quite literally. And cases were filed against people who were protesting against them. And in the meanwhile, not only did that continue, but Rajasthan was like, we kind of want another block because this ain't enough. And so not only was what Adhani was doing was a mine, sell it back to Rajasthan at a higher cost and pass that on the higher cost on to electricity consumers who were effectively paying more money for it. This happened several times. So essentially, and now they were like, we want another block. So they've cleared another one. Now the Chhattisgarh government is like, well, I mean, we want another block and we are a power surplus. And Chhattisgarh is like, you just saw that, like all of the major mines, power plants, it's got power plants. It's powering the entire country to a large extent. And so in this factor, they were like, why does a power surplus state need another coal block? Well, they just gave some more. Sorry, some bad highlighting here. So yeah, so what does this kind of tell us? So it tells us that the Congress and the BJP have both been part of this. The opening up of a no-go forest, crucial for water security. We keep saying, oh yes, carbon sinks, we want a forest. India is going to plant a trillion trees somehow on a Yahoo news alert. Whoever reads the Yahoo news, do whatever else. But everyone talks about these afforestation programs, but you don't want to preserve old growth forests. What it also points out is that the court is upon. What up, Supreme Court? Why is it that you've looked the other way while the Green Chavunel said, wait, don't hack this forest down? So essentially, they've allowed Adani to pass on the cost. Why couldn't Rajasthan have just bought coal from coal India? Why do you need, and at a lower price, why do you still want to do this? Another important fact to know is that there was an inviolate forest policy, which was watered down. They said, well, firstly, yeah, I don't think biodiversity is part of what should determine whether you can mine a forest or not. Or it's hydrological value, yeah. So what if it gives birth to a few streams? And then it's just been in the works for ages since 2014, very significant year. So now, even the Congress government, which won in Chhattisgarh recently in state elections, people were tired of being exploited. Yes, you will stand against this. Well, now, so yeah, essentially, this is now the situation. So that's around 7,500 hectares of land that it can mine in this forest as a contractor. Again, pass on the costs, don't take any of the liabilities, and make a hell lot of money, and make poor peeps pay for it. And yeah, of course, none of these contracts are available in the public domain. Right, so now on to another story quickly, tell me when I'm running out. I'm on the clock, okay, cool. Ten minutes for this extremely crazy story of the most insane coal plant in the world, as decided by me. But so this is a picture of, this is Godda. And well, lots of people would never have heard of it. Like how many of you have heard of P. Sainath, this Indian journalist? Well, he takes a lot of pictures of these people who push cycles. Essentially, Godda is in Jharkhand. It's a state that has amongst India's biggest coal reserves. Now, people, there are some of the oldest mines here, where for one hour the mines are opened. People can go and load coal on it from their own lands, which they've been displaced from, carried in cycles, pushed the cycle around 50 kilometers, go and sell it in the open market, cook with coal, which is why a lot of these areas are smoggy and so on, but also, hey, mining. But essentially, this is Godda, which is in the easternmost part of India. You can look at, so this is a really, yeah. Here, Godda is going to be the site of this extremely insane coal plant. Where it, and it's now super significant because here is the Great Barrier Reef. So coal is going to travel from here, all the way here, get off at Orissa, Dhamrapur, owned by Adani, travel this distance by train, be burnt in Jharkhand, and the electricity exported to Bangladesh. So essentially, this is possibly the most carbon-intensive power in the world. What an amazing footprint. So this extremely bright idea, yeah, every time Modi hugs someone, I start getting paranoid about what projects is it going to lead to some of his biggest buddies. So yeah, so in this case, well, Manmohan Singh, former Prime Minister, quiet man, worked like beach by Dr. Ray Headphones at a nuclear summit, well, still extended a line of credit because they wanted to set up Bangladesh, unfortunately, is landlocked. It has no hydro, it has no coal reserves, and it has a lot of people, and they need power because development and this is truth. But at the same time, one of the first proposals was for this Rampal power plant. Now, if you've heard of it, that's the one where they said, oh no, it will pass through the Sundarbans and what will happen to the tigers, what will happen to the people. But yeah, I mean, so essentially the first plants that were proposed in Bangladesh by India were to be built in Bangladesh. But with the kinds of opposition that they saw that was happening within the country, this was a theory, that India was like, hey, we know how to deal with our own people. So yeah, and how to repress them. So why not we do this on our own land and export power to y'all. So a cold-ridged state, Jharkhand, remember, ruled by the BJP. Previous case, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh ruled by the BJP. They could have set this up in West Bengal, but oh no, Mamta left. Doesn't really like Modi, leftish now. Well, yeah, who knows anymore. So essentially it was the most easy thing for them to do, which was, Adai did win a coal block in an auction and it's in Goddav, which is really strange. If you have a coal block there of your own in that particular district, why are you getting coal from the Great Barrier Reef into this place? Makes no sense. I thought I was losing my mind half the time when working on the story. But yeah, he visits Hasina, Hasina man gayi. So next thing you know, the same the next day of his visit, where historic land accord, everybody talked about that, but next day projects for Adani and Reliance. So besties get a sweet deal. And what follows next is the fact that, well, so you're saying Jharkhand. Jharkhand is a state where, well, not much power, despite all of this coal, in this very district only 17% have access to electricity. So it kind of makes sense that some of the power goes back to the people. So that's what Jharkhand's energy policy said, fine, come, set up, make in, manufacture in Jharkhand, cool, cool, cool, but 25% of that power needs to come back to us. It's fairly reasonable considering, A, you're going to give up land, you're going to deal with the pollution burden, you're going to give up water and help with infrastructure. Decent demand? Yes, no, maybe. I certainly think so. But anyway, so that was their policy. And so this was amended for Adani slowly in different ways. Basically they said, well, since we're not getting a coal block free from the government, we are not going to give you 25% or we'll give it to you at a higher price. Step one. And yeah, if two power plants here, so if India did want to sell electricity from that state to Bangladesh, they could have pulled it from there. But they didn't. So and, but then you're looking at like different policies like the state land acquisition law was eased. They said that this is a public purpose project. How is a private power plant in which Bangladesh is our, well, we don't know how much they're going to pay because that's not in the public domain yet. So they might be paying a really high amount for power. Australians are going to give up their land. And how is it a private power plant? How is it a public purpose project? So that was what this great land acquisition law, British 1894, we were stuck with that act for the longest time. But now this new act said nice things that we'll take our time, we'll figure it out, but it's actually public purpose or not. Except in this case they said, well, it's kind of, we think it's public purpose because it's about friendship. Friendship based on three countries being locked into climate change and coal dependence forever. So yeah, so then became public purpose. Contributing that law. The energy policy was put aside and it was announced as a special economic zone. So this is a land acquisition law. They would like essentially, you know, it's multi-crop land so on so forth. It's set up on agricultural land. So they also built a pipeline. They said we're going to enact a new pipeline and transmission law, which is like, hey, well, we're not really going to use your land. It's just going to build a pipeline over it so that land is still fine. So we'll pay you maybe for like, we just have a right of way. So we can just build whatever we don't need your consent. Essentially, that's what the pipeline and transmission, the new act kind of said. We have right of way. So yeah, and the SEZ policy. So in the early days, and I was waiting for this and like, bros, brace for it, brace for it. What's going to happen next? They really want to push this thing through before Modi goes out of style. Well, we were being extremely optimistic. Not. But the end of term and they announced this to be a special economic zone. Essentially, that means a duty-free zone. So imagine the Dubai airport and this power plant in a remote part of Jharkhand. No duties for so every ton of coal when you mine in India, 400 rupees, which is like four pounds has to go to the state as part of our climate change trust fund, which is supposed to go for renewable energy, research and development. That's essentially taken from these places. Could be produced in the country, it could be imported. So if they were importing 7 million tons of coal from Australia, now they don't have to pay, that would account for 3.2 billion a year. They don't have to pay that because they're like, hey, we are a special economic zone now. So the laws were duty-free. So we don't have to pay that. So they don't have to pay a coalsess. They don't have to pay capital costs. I mean, like for equipment, that is a duty that exists there. They don't have to pay for, you saw that lovely freight railway line. Well, they don't have to pay freight charges. They don't have to pay duty on transport. And there's a whole bunch of other stuff that are struggling with an excel sheet and eventually it was like, yeah, this is beyond belief. So you're subsidizing, highly subsidizing a private power plant, calling it again, public purpose. And now it's a special economic zone. You thought this was bad. Well, welcome to Halloween. So yeah, who decided to finance? Also, yeah, if it's a special economic zone, it also means like you don't have to conduct public hearing in a certain way. They changed the laws. They said until now power plants could not be special power economic zones. They changed the law to benefit them. And then voila, we have who decides to lend the money? Well, Deutsche Bank was being very, we don't want to look at no coal anymore. I know this is not a Deutsche accent. I just went with French. My apologies. But so lots of banks stayed away from financing this because it's clearly insane, plus also Australians pissed off. And, you know, that moves matters, not brown people being like Jaljangalsameen and fight for our land. But yeah, like banks were staying away. And who decides to lend to them? India's Rural Electrification Corporation. But remember, not a single village is going to get electricity from this project. So you've got half a billion from them, half a billion from the Power Finance Corporation. And that's 1.5, sorry, let me see. Yeah, 1.5 billion from both of these entities who are broke because they lend to, remember those Ayurvedic dudes I talked to you about. Everybody core rush, loans from the bank, bad loans, power plants that never got built. You know, all of those ghosting kind of power plants. Yeah, all the greatics are still being built for in the banks. You have stressed assets. This is broken India's economy. But these lenders have now lent to them. So no electricity to Jharkhand. They're going to deal with the pollution, going to lose their land. Also, now they have managed to sanction whatever this power plant is going to come from the Ganga. So ultimate purity. And yeah, now let's see. So yeah, I mean, just to conclude, I have five minutes. Okay, there's some more, but like I think I will just like end with some of this. Is the idea that, okay, those big minds that you saw at the beginning. Those are expanding. Stay it on. Now you've got, again, private entities mining, contractors doing this kind of a job. We're saying we don't want the minister for coal for the longest time. Now it's a different guy, but the same party. It's like we want to reduce our imports, which is why we want to expand domestically. But hey, imports, Great Barrier Reef, and from different parts of the world now. Adani is also one of the world's biggest coal importers. So there's also this other thing of how they build the Gujarat government as well, saying that, hey, we kind of didn't expect Indonesian coal prices to rise. So bail us out. And they got to bail out. And now Gujarat citizens pay extra for electricity there. So you've got Gujarat, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, and all of these with Maharashtra, wherever you see, I mean, it's maybe a saffron-colored Palo Palo Bill. But all of these states are essentially billing customers, or consumers passing on those costs. They're even saying, well, pollution control equipment, that's also something we want the state to pay for. But anyway, so we're saying we want, all of these states are saying, we want our own coal block, we need to mine. Whole India is expanding. You've got imports that are on the rise. And we also want to export. And there's also commercial coal mining. How does it add up? And in the meanwhile, Modi comes to Davos, talks about climate change, talks about yoga. And essentially, this leads us to a great dilemma, where there are people like myself at these conferences often told, and it's true, this is like climate justice. Yes, developing countries. India has its meeting, its own fair share of what it's doing. And yes, we deserve all of the technology transfer. We need the finance from the rich world to us to help balance the wheel. But what about equity within our own countries? And how does this add up? Because I think India is now, we are one of the few countries that's really hurtling. We have never committed to a phase out of fossil fuels. Instead, we are seeing the kind of ramping up and now internationally, that's happening in different places. So which comes to the question of like everyone kind of talks about equity within countries. But the injustices, and we say historical injustice, historical injustice. Yes, I know I am the country of James Watt. And of course, that looking at how energy poverty versus all, I mean, and looking at imperialism, colonialism. But we are ignoring historic injustices that communities in these places are facing because you are doing away with their right to consent. You're doing away with their land. They're dealing with the pollution for no electricity to them. They're dealing with, again, rural electrification. We keep saying that this is to light up India's villages and that's why we must continue to burn coal. But it doesn't really make any sense at this point. So why are we still doing this? I think, and also these contracts, I strongly believe that contracts seem to be called in question. We need domestic assessment of what our energy needs really. Where do we draw that cap? And why is it that we are locking other climate affected nations into coal dependency? So while climate justice is definitely the need of the day, we must call into question the kind of contractors that are not delivering on promises to communities instead charging them higher for power. And in order to be able to speak to the power, we have to call out these kinds of contractors and politicians in our midst who are locking us into a trajectory we cannot go away from. And as you know, climate change supercharges violations against the same poor people. So on that terrifying note, happy Halloween and I will hand over to Jens and any questions that you have. Thanks. I will open the floor as quickly as possible for questions. But before doing that, let me just say that it is an absolutely harrowing story from the base in the two most oppressive states in India run by what appears to be chromic casualties that are killing at the same time. But I just wonder what is the view in India outside the wire on this? Is there any popular protests locally elsewhere? Or is this just something that goes down? Yes, locally in these forests right now, people are in their second week of being on an infinite strike in these forests. Now the question is, again, if there is a protest in the forest, who is there to hear it? And we find very limited spaces. I keep joking that maybe there are five places in the country that I didn't write for. I was lucky that the New York Times got in touch with me. That almost never happens. It's always us sending pictures and those things never come out. So it was lucky in that sense, but there is so much also pressure to not write against them in the media. They also politely contact your publishers after your stories come out. I think there is a huge, in terms of both climate strikes have started in cities, but I was upset by the fact that when I started saying, they said beta, beta, plastic beta. I said no, no, no to plastic. And then I started yelling beta, beta, fossil fuels, beta, and they looked at me like I was a T-rex behind a laptop. And so the idea that, I mean, that's not something that has gone into public consciousness as much. There is Ambani and Adani. Sometimes, I think that's also a problem with us. We find particular brand names and we need identifiable villains. So sometimes you're like, okay, but this guy might be identifiable. What about hundreds of other contractors who may not be as visible and who are not as, or may not be prominent villains enough in our consciousness? So there's not enough protest. Locally, yes, nationally there's some understanding, but this story didn't even make it to television. My parents were like, what the hell? They were afraid that what would happen, backlash, because I keep going back to these areas. But it never came on television. So it's kind of his, W disappointing, but well, there's social media for everything else. But if only every share helped put this down. But I do think that in our cases, essentially that's the other opposition. There are many people who are filing cases in courts, but they're getting stuck in courts and dragged, as you saw with this and with other cases. So I made a document of where the Supreme Court has actually delayed on every one of the cases that involved these players. Thanks. Let us open the floor. I have many more questions I would like to ask, but let's keep the others a chance first so that I may be myself under these governance, but please, any questions? Yes, please. I have a question. Curious about what you said about governance in courts allowing contractors to pass on the costs of mining to consumers. Right. And so my specific question from the experience in Maharashtra and Karnataka where there's an active consumer group that is actually doing the costing, checking the price for electricity, for the electricity and electric commissions and challenging all of these. Is it different than the state of Maharashtra? Exactly. Prayas was, if you were talking about it, Prayas was the one who took Adani to court on the fact that they have another port, which is one of their first, Mundra, where that power plant, the government, bailed them out. They were passing on these costs. The electricity, they went to the Supreme Court. Supreme Court was sent to the electricity regulator and eventually they ruled in their favor, saying that, well, the cost of first setting up a new plant or doing something else will be much more, you know, much more detrimental than just allowing these guys to take our money and continue to run with it because they have better pollution equipment. So that case was very interesting. In Rajasthan, not so much on the financials, people have not necessarily challenged them and I think that that's a challenge that's going to come up soon. I've been speaking to groups in the last few days because on forest rights, on land issues, people file cases in the High Court. They may not have access to lawyers. Same bunch of lawyers are the ones who are always litigating, so they are overburdened. So I think maybe, and that's sometimes also the knowledge of the fact that this is happening is very low, that because it's not reported as much, there's not enough angst and there are really not enough petitioners. Priyas is one of the few groups that has decided to take on players with as much connection to power and sometimes we see a handful. People are like nowadays, okay, well, you see posting a tweet as something to be really afraid of or something, but taking on something as a petitioner. Yeah, I wish, I really honestly wish, and I wish there are more chronic petitioners who arise to ask these questions. Yeah, please. Yeah, so just out of curiosity, so we're doing this recent study of global emissions, et cetera, et cetera, the linkages, so very interesting. I think you also mentioned about energy, needs of India and how, if you look at it at global standards, the UK and other developed countries actually consume a lot more than India per capita. So we were trying to draw connections between how there's like Vedanta here, they've got their coal mines in India and emissions happening there, so we're a more polluted country than basically offshore, right? I just wanted to understand if you have any numbers or figures like your Bangladesh example, so how much of what happens in India actually helps India? I think there's, I'll share those numbers with you. I think there's a fair share as a report and if you look at what is our fair share to emit, I'm glad that we brought up the per capita and essentially that was the shooting from the shoulders of the poor bit, which is there and the fact that we, for us we were always like per capita, we're terrible, per capita, per capita is completely, it dissolves, it's depoliticizing and it kind of allows for us to still hide behind that to enable a lot of things. But yeah, the idea of how much of it is, what do they call it, our own emissions, how much of it, whatever we're producing is kind of going out, how much of it is outsourced by other countries, I think more than in terms of power plants and maybe in terms of external corporations, I would say that maybe it might just be cement, lavage, Vedanta, a handful of players. I would not see it as significant as externals. I would say more in terms of internally and how much of things going towards, but yeah, of course, also manufacturing, how many countries are kind of set up. I'll try to link you to and also look this up, I think it will be really useful to do, to say how much of these are because of us, but we do know that the coal is from us, where it's coming from, so yeah. Some of the things to this, I think this last year in the Indian press that there were claims being made that from now on, it was cheaper to rely on renewable sources for the energy and engines, so the future would be green, cheaper than coal. So that was really great. I mean, it was an important time. I was suicidal. I had come back from the UN climate talks and seeing the US and China arguing over semi-colons and curly brackets, and after coming from these mining areas, I was like, man, I don't know what to live for. I came back to Delhi, saw that pollution and I was like, yeah, this is it. But then these solar and wind tariffs were announced and suddenly, I mean, hope was a thing and it was still, but now what also happened and it still involves our friend here was the fact that India started mulling and import duty. They said we're going to impose 70% I think it was 70% or 75% import duty on panels coming from China and Malaysia. So for months, for four months, ships were stuck at the ports, ships full of panels were stuck at the ports because they didn't announce the policy officially and uncertainty meant those rates that were announced, manufacturers were like, well, people were like, we don't know whether we can honor those agreements anymore and state power utilities were like, well, we don't think you're going up and down, we're going to stick with coal, sorry. And because India was like, we want to make in India, except, and who are the ones who are going to manufacture in India? Adani, Tata Green, the same guys who are really, so how interested are they going to be to challenge their own business, which is funny. And we produce, we possibly produce as many panels in a day as China does in a year. So it becomes a very interesting domain of, well, yes, protectionism, you want to generate green jobs, you want to do all of that, but if it's going to the same people who don't have renewables, actual interest, so just for them, it's like another market, like, Adani is into cold storage for apples. It's like, how do you like them apples as well? But like, yeah, I mean, the kinds of businesses that they have decided to diversify into. But so now, I think that's going to be, and they, like with Soda, what was interesting is that we had players who are not known. You had completely new entrepreneurs. Like, none of these old names, none of these old cronies bidding, they had finance from across the world. So now that's in a state of door terms. So I really do need to push, I think that import duty was scrapped. I think now it's, I think, about 25%. I'm going to look back into that as part of it. But yeah, the sunshine revolution is there, but it's also being stored by the same vampires. Because at the same time, the targets for cold has gone up, hasn't it? With the amount of cold being produced, it's increasing. I mean, but then also there are hopeful reports from Greenpeace and others who are saying that, well, our emissions will come down, that it will take off. And yeah, I mean, it's always good to kind of push forward. We're seeing, this is what we're still seeing new places being opened up. I mean, the idea is you're existing minds, unfortunately always the sacrifice zones where you can keep extracting, but if you want to open new areas, why is that? That doesn't make sense. And here. Do you think the solution for this in our country or there's like a requirement for an international treaty because it's not like this placement just for coal mines, right? It's for dams, it's for transport. Yeah. Like, no, I mean, you're none other than this mass movement that also did not help at the end. So we're not really seeing a solution internally and other countries as well are not really seeing solutions internally. So are we looking at an international approach or where do we go from here? That's a really good question that I'm kind of taking this year to try and figure out. But yeah, as you said, we also passed off being hydro as a renewable. Man, okay. Yeah, so I think from what, so I've worked with movements and worked with small organizations, large organizations, tried to throw whatever wheels you can in a juggernaut and then realized that, you know, you can, for a long time, we were using the law as a delaying tactic of at least stall it for a bit until you do something else, have movements there. So, but now if you do away with the law or if the court doesn't see things, I think there is going to have, well, political solutions. Now, and as I say this, I'm also like, well, they allowed anonymous donations to political parties. So yeah, maybe the Congress also got, you know, a hefty donation. You don't know who is who. So I think it does have to be mass movement, but mass movement also in cities, I think internationally, well, the Paris Agreement is again one of those legally binding, yes, not so legally binding also. It's in great territory. It doesn't necessarily put caps. You just, it's a reporting mechanism. And I think if there is a greater enforceability that comes for nations at this stage, then that's something that we see kind of going forward. Otherwise, I feel like it's still, it is that combination of bodies on the line, media and world. And how do you deal with, and now I feel like I am enthused by young people getting involved in the climate movement. And as our electorate grows, to reflect more of those interests, I still feel like there is a bit to hold out on. Yeah, and if we are more aware of what make those linkages. So instead of you're sort of saying beta, beta, plastic beta, the idea of more young people in India started participating in these processes, like for instance, other cities like Hamburg in Germany decided to take back its own grid. I think things happening at a much more decentralized level, where you know your individual power players, where you can get that kind of accountability rather than these kind of big guns and holding them to it there is where hope lies. I'm still trying to figure it out. Yes, where is hope? So we have heard a lot of dystopian stories of cold but has there ever been one cold block in the last 20 years that has been done properly? Unproperly. Social impact assessment. So A, there has not been a single social impact assessment that has ever been done properly. With respect to the 2013 land act, I went full of enthusiasm. For this power plant, they actually did a social impact assessment. I was super enthused. It had its own errors and of course they made some people dead and some people living and who are actually living and dead. So yeah, again Halloween vibe. But what I don't think I know of, but here's the thing. Because there's also your employment part which at one stage people gave they were happy or they say that they were happy because you got paid pretty well by the core company. You got a state owned job. There was some amount of dignity you were able to start with. It's when you start losing water, when your faults are decimated, when those jobs are no longer tenable, when you mechanize it and your kids don't get to work. So that's when things get out of hand. There are still people who work and who are kind of go about their thing. But I don't think I know of Equal Block in my experience where... And this is when you do joint ventures then you do not need to provide jobs because then it's not covered. So even if the state is a part of joint venture, they circumvent that right. And the company doesn't have its... I was going to show you a picture of NGPC but that's a really sad story where they have contracted not to Adani but to another company. And again, it's a sad story. But I don't think there's... Not that I know of it which is why I'm always willing and holding out to say, but there is one... I do know that there is one cement factory or one minor in Karnataka that has actually restored their land, followed processes, treats their workers well. There is one example. So I will hold out on that. Please. You can write for about five mediums in Indian that if you do publish or if one of your stories is published then you publish, you will get a call from someone. So who is it then, the government department who is trying to suppress media? No, it's the PR agency of the company. So it's the PR agency of the private firm because I write those letters in board, no Adani. So sometimes their corporate communication person get in touch. This has happened a few times. Not, yeah. And it depends. Sometimes when they don't... When I think I'm making completely wild allegations and like otherwise... And I think above, like half the times I have been shocked that conspiracy theories are true when they don't respond and they don't come back to you and they don't talk about it and hope that there is no traction for the story. Do you think that these kinds of responses from those ventures also have influence on what actually gets reported? Like harder publishers? Yeah. This has happened with many, for instance, economic and political weekly where journalists per enjoy have written and they fire slap suits. Like in the wire as well, they fire. Sometimes... And people get wary. Many places that's why they don't necessarily publish. Like I... And sometimes I wonder because some of the leading publications like the Indian Express is known to be... was known to be extremely critical, had this reputation of challenging things. But in these last five years of government we kind of, you know, we've been... What are your big stories? Who have you challenged? If we know that this is a pro-corporate pro-government in place, your main duty is to report on this. So me and another journalist we were just talking the other day and you were like, why is it that we as environment journalists, essentially that's what me and this other friend of mine who work at SCAN, why is it that environment journalists are having to learn tax laws? Why are we learning? Having to look at deeply within tax trade and other laws, teach ourselves all of this when why isn't an international trade reporter or a mining reporter breaking these camps, right? You're following them as a beat. You know this inside out. You know their represent details. So yeah, and one of these stories kind of make the kind of... But now we also have to look at it in different ways. So I try and tell these stories by, let's say, focusing on public health. Now, air pollution has become a side root to talk about what's happening in the industry. Because public health you can't avoid it and readers still want to know. So using that and then it gets into other publications. So do some art on it, and cover it, name, no names, which I've also tried to do. So it's basically all sorts of other ways than focusing on the fact that in two states of India, adivasis in particular are suffering quite enormously because of this. And I wonder sometimes if it's simply because it's adivasis that the government can get away with doing this and can instigate the news blank out. Could they do it anywhere else in India too? I feel like... And that continues, right? We still see communities in India as subhuman casteism. And for me, that is perhaps the castes that underline kind of actually overt part of it, that you expect that people will move for your energy needs. Even as I see journalists in Delhi and otherwise or otherwise will be like, yes, India has a right to develop, we have a right to use our own legacy, who's the best to tell us. I keep saying that who is it who's paying this cost? You're not dealing with pollution, you're not dealing with a displacement. Our idea to externalize this and the fact that we don't have Dalits or adivasis in newsrooms making decisions, you don't have them heading mining companies. We don't have women in these spaces let alone Dalits and adivasis in editorial kind of spaces also. Because that's how you decide news priorities. If that were the case, we would be focusing on displacement a whole lot more. We would not, what would our priorities be? And that continues to pervade the fact that and also the sense of anti-government that we have that well, we have a right to develop. We only just started tasting the fruits of liberalism. So yeah, I come from Bangalore where there's a separate app only for breakfast. You have done so, a service which will send somebody as a runner. So it's like high tech needs cheap labor means somebody else will be sacrificed for your power, your electricity and we don't want to look at those particular aspects. And we still justify this with the idea that well, somebody's got to do it. At least it's a job, it's a job generation. Well, we're not seeing, like as you said, those jobs are nowhere. Now, but it's also interesting, like when you ask for hope, now that huge coal mine, which you saw in the video, people have started a cooperative and they are bidding for, they're saying we have all these huge mine waste dumps. Let's install solar on it. Let's start bidding for the contracts. There we have all of this land which is wasteland, which you have turned to waste. Let's bid, let's bring Ari here. They've also said we want, they've also bid for the other things which is like your transport contract of coal. If you're going to keep mining, then make us your drivers. Why are we not getting, and sometimes purists will be like, well, they want to mine their own lands. Well, that's going to continue. In at least state and mine, some of these places, that will continue. But yeah, they're right to be able to assert, to organize. And they've been doing it also by shutting down the mines. Imagine 15, like if around 4,000 people stand at the spot where, yeah, you may ignore their tweets, you can ignore everything else, but when you have a whole number of people who are organized standing there, then the government is forced to yield, at least when you are stopping a rake. So yeah, helps to have some cameras also, capturing it. But yeah, also one mine got shut down because the river flew into it. I mean, not flew into it, like it got diverted into it, so thanks to a flood, so yeah, maybe in each other, they can back, yeah. Further questions? In the case, then me, there's one there. So I had a question in linking back, actually on your last slide, around the equity within the country. I think around 10 or 13 years ago, Greenpeace published this report in India, hiding behind the poor, saying that finding out the fact that India's international equity position was, but then since then, there's not really been much come out of NGOs within India. Do you know any about them? Because there's CSE who worked a different spin on that. Yeah, CSE, I have, my interesting questions about it. I think that might actually be my own circumstances. But like you said, organizations are working on equity. For instance, let's say, what is the payoff from mining? There were two things which have started. One was the coal sess I was talking to you about, well, Modi diverted a large amount of it to his goods and services tax and well, demolished that and used it for building or put some other thing in the Ganga and other thing in toilet programs or Swachh Bharat and whatever else. But there's also district mineral foundation, which the idea was also to have benefit sharing with communities. So that's, I'm talking about equity, that sense of the fact of what is the benefit that's shared with communities living there or who have been historically marginalized or had to pay most of this. On equity and other issues, I think there are maybe a couple of organizations kind of looking at it. I think Navarose Dubash and others maybe in CPR and doing some research, but nothing has really come as much to the forefront. Or not that I know of. I will happily take your email and find out something. Kuntala Lahari Dutt. So she brought coal nation and it's also because then she also talks about smaller scale mines and things like that. The idea that these district mineral foundations what was supposed to be a benefit sharing has now become now those contracts again again massive fund you get like, you have a CSR so essentially what's happened is you've changed a rights regime to corporate social responsibility regime. So you pay for it. What does that payment go to? Supposed to be for environment, health, all that. Roads mostly. Folian highways for mining trucks. But the equity discussion definitely on the international front that something needs to cover. I feel also kind of slightly upset because also a lot of organizations that work on coal have been clamped on. I like to call it my own career kryptonite that every place I work with shuts down at some point but the increasing move is from more people are talking about air pollution and using that as a way to talk about mining. Maybe not mining as so much now it's more on the health and rallying urban people. I think at least with the climate movement now picking up hopefully we can get back there. A greater understanding of that. But yeah, people are playing it safe and sometimes I find it annoying like, okay, how many monitors are you going to put in one area? What is that going to take? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what I am going to put in one area. What is that going to tell you versus are you going to fund something like that or are you going to fund the people who are body on the line legal cost going and fighting different spaces. So I think those things are also things that you know funder's need to take into consideration. So essentially like while they stop foreign funding and unpopular causes to be worked on they enabled anonymous corporate funding. So it's going to be an interesting time to see how these fights proceed. Have I solved all the whole part of the room? I will also use the chairs for one last question from you. Because earlier you were highlighting that it was problematic to focus too much on Badan Dhani. But since the situation as it is, isn't it better than nothing? At least there's that way that you can show that there's names. I agree, because now unfortunately this names everywhere. And he's gotten most of the contracts, fewer of the other names. If you're building the kind of monopolies that you are, reliance should continue to get that focus. It's good that those names exist and it's good that it's embedded in public imagination. Because there is AR, Ambani, Adhani. So it's there when people are whining about the state, they mention these two companies. It makes my heart grow a little warmer. That you do recognize and people do know that there is this cronyism that exists. How do you overthrow it? Like for instance Bombay, its electricity grid was just bought over from Badan. So if the city kind of did want to start its own, well, it's a lot of people. And a lot of climate impacts. And now if it stands the chance of being wiped out by its level rise, it's as good a time to connect those dots. If people identify with these names, you can organize around them. Have some discussions around it. Have really mad, you know, really mad Maharashtrians can do a lot of intense things. So yeah, we live in hope. Should be in the next slightly optimistic note. Thanks. Take back the grid. Thank you guys because I hope you weren't bored. Believe that the people on behalf of the organizing team, we thank you too. Thank you so much. Thank you everyone for joining us for another late evening conversation. Thank you.