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Sustainable Development

Indian activist Ramesh Agrawal wins 'Green Nobel'

by The Daily Eye Team April 30 2014, 1:44 pm Estimated Reading Time: 1 min, 9 secs

GARE VILLAGE (Andhra Pradesh): The man walked into Ramesh Agrawal’s tiny internet cafe, pulled out a pistol and hissed, “You talk too much.” Then he fired two bullets into Agrawal’s left leg and fled on a motorcycle. The 2012 attack came three months after Agrawal won a court case that blocked a major Indian company, Jindal Steel & Power Ltd, from opening a second coal mine near the village of Gare in the mineral-rich state of Chhattisgarh. For a decade, Agrawal, who has no formal legal training, has been waging a one-man campaign to educate illiterate villagers about their rights in fighting pollution and land-grabbing by powerful mining and electricity companies.

He’s won three lawsuits against major corporations and has spearheaded seven more pending in courts. “When I started this fight, I knew I’d be a target. It will happen again. Let it happen. I’m not going anywhere,” the soft-spoken yoga enthusiast said in an interview this month in the city of Raigarh, where he hobbled around his modest home with a cane and a metal brace screwed into his shattered femur. On Monday, Agrawal, 60, will be recognized in a ceremony in San Francisco as one of six recipients of this year’s $175,000 Goldman Environmental Prize, often called the “Green Nobel.”

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