Vedanta Resources

The Whitewashing of Vedanta Industries In one of the article posted some time ago, ED had mentioned the MNC called Vedanta. The name itself of the company is a misnomer. The ones who had named it so do not know the meaning or complexity of the term. This company with such a vainglorious name is out to take undue advantage of many indigenous tribes such as the Niyamgiri and Dongria Kondhs in the state of Odisha in India, in the name of development and creating misery for the people by imparting “happiness” to the people – which by the way is another misnomer – according to the misinformation they are disseminating through a series of ads. No less than an organization than Amnesty International as well as a lot of human rights groups have taken exception to the activities of this monster ready to gobble up the local tribes inhabiting the hinterlands of Odisha, through their avaricious activities. In Chhattisgarh, in their Balco plant 45 workers were killed in an accident during construction. The company is under litigation for this mishap. Now Vedanta is out to whitewash its malpractices by means of clever advertisements, one of them featuring a naïve lad named Binno. Their latest endeavor in the process is to invite students of mass communication from scores of educational institutions from all over India to produce 3-minute short films to illustrate of all things Vedanta’s so-called Corporate Social Responsibility projects. What an irony? No wonder movie greats like Shyam Benegal and Gul Panag have withdrawn from the list of juries. No amount of whitewashing will improve the image of a company that is out to destroy a unique culture and a fragile environment. Mining companies are not exactly friends of mother Earth.