In Madurai, mining for tungsten and trouble

There have been sustained protests in Madurai district of Tamil Nadu ever since the Union government announced in November 2024 that it had granted tungsten mining rights in eight blocks to Hindustan Zinc, a subsidiary of Vedanta. The residents of the region, particularly Melur taluk, which has the Arittapatti biodiversity heritage site, worry about their land, lives, and livelihoods, reports C. Palanivel Rajan