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Report Indicts Vedanta Resources for Flagrant Human Rights, Environmental Violations
Counter Report Challenges Vedanta at August 3 London Shareholders
Meeting
For Immediate Release
August 3, 2005
Contacts:
Roger Moody +44 20 7700 6189 (UK) E: partizans@gn.apc.org
Samendra Das +91 94373 81331 (India)
Amit Srivastava +91 98103 46161 (India) E: info@IndiaResource.org
New Delhi (August 3, 2005): A new report
published today, Ravages through India, highlights the egregious violations
of human rights, environment and the law by Vedanta Resources plc,
a publicly traded metals and mining company on the London Stock Exchange.
The report, published by the US-based India Resource Center and the
UK-based Nostromo Research, comes on the day of Vedanta Resources'
shareholder meeting in London on August 3, 2005.
Maintaining that the international media has been largely silent on
the mining company's flagrant violations, the report is supported
by "a large group of concerned organizations and individuals, including
minority shareholders, community representatives, workers, environmental,
human rights and worker's rights campaigners, who are determined that
this veil of silence should be lifted."
Although a global corporation, Vedanta Resource's primary metal and
mining operations are in India. The company is India's biggest producer
of zinc, its second largest producer of copper, and number three in
aluminium.
The report documents the forced displacement of communities, flagrant
violations of environmental laws, land grabs, shady financial dealings,
public health crisis and worker's rights abuses - all part of Vedanta
Resources' practices in India.
The company is principally owned by Mr. Anil Agarwal and his family,
a non resident Indian residing in the UK.
Vedanta Resources (and its subsidiaries) is the target of various
human rights and environmental campaigns in India, from Orissa to
Chattisgarh to Tamil Nadu. Its subsidiaries include Bharat Aluminum
Company (BALCO), Madras Aluminium Company (MALCO) and Vedanta Alumina.
"Our hope and expectation is that those who brought this dubious company
to the market - such as the J P Morgan investment bank, which recently
announced an "ethical policy," and ABN AMRO which purports to have
one already in place - will revise their assessment of Vedanta as
a company with which conscientious investors can continue to do business."
The report can be downloaded from www.IndiaResource.org
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