In August this year, the Madras High Court delivered a rare, but decisive victory to the people of Thoothukudi in their fight against an industrial giant in their quarter-century battle. Thoothukudi is an industrial seaside town of 700,000 facing the Bay of Bengal in South India. The court not only denied Vedanta, the multi-billion-dollar global mining and metals conglomerate permission to resume its shuttered copper smelter, it also held the company responsible for widespread environmental degradation and severe health consequences suffered by the people of Thoothukudi as a result of sulphur dioxide poisoning. 

This episode on the Climate Emergency podcast reported by journalist Kunal Shankar captures why this court order is significant to India’s environmental jurisprudence and how opposition to Vedanta has influenced the social and political dynamics of Tamil Nadu.

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