India's top court clears Posco, Vedanta projects in key rulings

0 Comments | AFP, August, 2008

NEW DELHI (AFP) — India's top court Friday cleared South Korean steel giant Posco's plan for a 12-billion-dollar plant in a controversial case seen pitting farmers' interests against growing industrial development.

In another key case viewed as a test of tribal rights, the court approved British mining company Vedanta Resources' proposal to mine bauxite on land held sacred by locals to feed a 900-million-dollar aluminium refinery.

The plant to be built by Posco, Asia's top steel producer, in the resource-rich eastern coastal state of Orissa would be the biggest foreign direct investment in India since it launched market reforms in 1991.

But the plant, which aims to create 18,000 jobs in a poverty-ridden part of the country over the next decade, has stirred...