{"id":21503,"date":"2020-08-08T16:00:01","date_gmt":"2020-08-08T07:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/aug\/08\/india-prime-minister-narendra-modi-plans-to-fell-ancient-forest-to-create-40-new-coal-fields"},"modified":"2020-08-08T16:00:01","modified_gmt":"2020-08-08T07:00:01","slug":"india-plans-to-fell-ancient-forest-to-create-40-new-coalfields","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=21503","title":{"rendered":"India plans to fell ancient forest to create 40 new coalfields"},"content":{"rendered":"

Narendra Modi\u2019s dream of a \u2018self-reliant India\u2019 comes at a terrible price for its indigenous population<\/p>\n

Over the past decade, Umeshwar Singh Amra has witnessed his homeland descend into a battleground. The war being waged in Hasdeo Arand, a rich and biodiverse Indian forest, has pitted indigenous people, ancient trees, elephants and sloths against the might of bulldozers, trucks and hydraulic jacks, fighting with a single purpose: the extraction of coal.<\/p>\n

Yet under a new \u201cself-reliant India\u201d plan<\/a> by the prime minister, Narendra Modi, to boost the economy post-Covid-19 and reduce costly imports, 40 new coalfields in some of India\u2019s most ecologically sensitive forests are to be opened up for commercial mining.<\/p>\n

Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Narendra Modi\u2019s dream of a \u2018self-reliant India\u2019 comes at a terrible price for its indigenous populationOver the past decade, Umeshwar Singh Amra has witnessed his homeland descend into a battleground. The war being waged in Hasdeo Arand, a rich and bio…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":663,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[973,326,589,456,493,65,492,564,62,433,61,94,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biodiversity","category-climate-change","category-coal","category-conservation","category-energy","category-environment","category-fossil-fuels","category-greenhouse-gas-emissions","category-india","category-narendra-modi","category-south-and-central-asia","category-wildlife","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/663"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21503"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21504,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21503\/revisions\/21504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}