Sandhya Ravishankar's Work

A court-ordered report has raised red flags over stocks of beach-sand minerals, which indicates both illegal mining and illegal exports of radioactive monazite. Originally published in The Wire on 12 Jan 2018 Link: https://thewire.in/business/illegal-sand-mining-monazite-tamil-nadu Chennai:  On December 20, a truck carrying five metric tonnes of beach-sand minerals was stopped by police near Nanguneri, in the district of Tirunelveli. The driver was arrested for theft and for violating the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957. Tirunelveli police said that the truck was headed to Puducherry from a plant belonging to Beach Minerals Company. This occurred despite the state government’s 2013 ban on mining or transporting beach-sand minerals. The Wire has extensively reported on how illegal mining, transport and export have continued despite the ban. But this latest interception follows an even more sobering discovery. Approximately 37,000 metric

Five years and many court cases later, the most scathing indictment of the beach sand mining industry in Tamil Nadu becomes public  ( Originally published in The Lede  Link:  http://thelede.co.in/exclusive-gagandeep-singh-bedi-report/) The Gagandeep Singh Bedi report, as it has now come to be called, has kicked up much dust in Tamil Nadu. The report is by a Special Team comprising 129 officials of various state government departments. Team lead Gagandeep Singh Bedi is a senior IAS officer in Tamil Nadu, who was then the Revenue Secretary of the state. He is currently the Secretary for Agriculture. Then Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa constituted this Special Team to probe into allegations of large scale illegal mining of beach sand in the districts of Tirunelveli, Tuticorin, Kanyakumari, Madurai and Trichy. Much water has flown under the bridge in the past five years since Bedi began his probe. He finished with Tuticorin, Tirunelveli and Kanyakumari districts and was pro

The Sahoo report raises serious questions on how much nuclear mineral has left Indian shores ( Originally published in HuffPost India on 10 May 2018 Link:  https://www.huffingtonpost.in/2018/05/10/exclusive-atomic-minerals-found-in-tamil-nadu-beach-sand-samples-meant-for-export-says-report_a_23431545/) A court-appointed committee has found significant quantities of an atomic mineral called monazite in samples of Tamil Nadu beach sand minerals meant for export, according to the committee's report, called the Sahoo report, accessed by HuffPost India. The findings could have implications for India's nuclear policy, and national security, which has long considered the possibility of using of monazite to extract nuclear-grade thorium oxide . Monazite is a mineral found naturally mixed into the beach sand of the southern coasts of the country, and can be processed to yield thorium, a nuclear fuel. It can be further enriched into uranium 233, used in nuclear weapons. The f