Mining
Being rich in mineral resources, the Aravalli hills have witnessed years of illegal mining, which have led to their fast erosion in Rajasthan and Haryana. This also poses a grave environmental concern as the ranges form a natural barrier against the spread of the Thar desert northwards into the Gangetic plains in the Gangetic basin and Gujarat
In May 2009, after months of media and public protests, along with several environmental groups, the Supreme Court banned mining in an area of 448 km2, across Faridabad, Gurgaon and Mewat districts in Haryana, that was once supposed to be set aside for a national park. This comes after SC's earlier judgment in 1994 that allowed limited mining on the basis of the sustainable development principle and under strict guidelines, which were violated by local miners as the court ruled. However, there are many illegal mines in Rajasthan, some of them operating at the edges of the Sariska Tiger Reserve.
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Famous quotes containing the word mining:
“It’s a mining town in lotus land.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“For every nineteenth-century middle-class family that protected its wife and child within the family circle, there was an Irish or a German girl scrubbing floors in that home, a Welsh boy mining coal to keep the home-baked goodies warm, a black girl doing the family laundry, a black mother and child picking cotton to be made into clothes for the family, and a Jewish or an Italian daughter in a sweatshop making “ladies” dresses or artificial flowers for the family to purchase.”
—Stephanie Coontz (20th century)
“In strict science, all persons underlie the same condition of an infinite remoteness. Shall we fear to cool our love by mining for the metaphysical foundation of this elysian temple? Shall I not be as real as the things I see? If I am, I shall not fear to know them for what they are.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)