Road blockade against new Indian alumina refinery

Thousands of activists on Saturday started a five-day road blockade of Vedanta's new 1.4-million tpy Lanjigarh alumina refinery in the east Indian state of Orissa.

The protesters—a mixture of "tribals", environmental activists and hard-line opposition parties—blocked roads leading to the refinery at several places with police reporting 45 arrests.

Vedanta has just begun trialling the new plant and although bauxite shipments to the refinery have been disrupted, the company has said that operationally the blockade so far hasn't made any significant impact.