India to restrict mining in tribal areas by private sector companies?

Indian newspaper "The Economic Times" said on Wednesday that the country's government is considering to restrict mining in tribal areas by private sector companies. Nearly all the major companies have activities in India and could be affected by the new rule, which was, according to an unnamed government source, made "to build proper safeguards for the tribal population affected by mining operations", whatever that means.

Current Indian regulations allow automatic foreign direct investment in most mining activities, and the country has about 85 billion tonnes of mineral reserves yet to be mined. The government had set a target of increasing foreign investment from US$ 200 million to US$ 20 billion in the short term.