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In a country where sappHIRS are a national treasure, one of India’s finest gemstones is under threat.
India’s gems are under fire from the mining mafia, with several mines that have been linked to the illegal mining of gemstones shut down in recent years.
India has around 150 mines operating in the country, with nearly half of them linked to illegal mining.
The mines, which operate in the north of the country that border Pakistan, have also been linked in recent months to the murder of two people in a spate of incidents involving mining and police brutality.
The killings have sparked calls for India to stop its illegal mining, with the government pledging to close more than 40 mines in the next five years.
The Indian government says it will close the mines in 2017, but the mines are not closed.
“We will have a nationwide closure of all mines by 2020, and there will be a ban on mining in all other sectors in the nation,” Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said in a speech at the inauguration of the National Coal Board (NCB).
“The mines should be shut down, the mines should go out of business, the people should not work in the mines,” he added.
But the mines have not gone away, and many locals fear that their communities will be left to suffer under the mines’ closure.
“There are people who have been living here for many generations, and they have suffered from the mines, and their families have been displaced, and the people who are left behind are not being compensated,” Suresh Yadav, an activist who heads the opposition Congress Party in India, told Al Jazeera.
“What will happen to the people of the communities?
What will happen for the livelihood of the families of the people living here?”
The Indian government claims it will continue its mining and mining related activities in the region, despite the mines being closed.
The mines are located on a vast, largely unexplored region of land known as the Panna-Kumar belt, which lies in the western part of the Andhra Pradesh state, bordering Bangladesh.
A few mines in this belt are among India’s largest, but mining operations have also come under scrutiny for other reasons.
In 2015, a report by a mining audit firm said some mines had been using high-explosive mines and mines in dangerous areas.
Last year, an investigation by a parliamentary committee found that more than 500,000 tonnes of minerals had been illegally mined, most of which was sold to China for about $US1 billion ($1.7 billion).
India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) was appointed to look into the allegations of illegal mining and has accused the mining firms of misleading government authorities and the public.
But the mines remain a source of tension, with many local residents saying they have been forced to move out of their homes in the past few years due to the mines.
In recent months, some mining companies have reportedly begun operating more profitable mines, but this has not been enough to appease locals.
“The mines have become so profitable, they have become like a business, and people want to go back, but there is no incentive for them to do so,” Yadav said.
With mines operating for so long in the Andra Pradesh region, the country has the potential to become one of the world’s largest diamond-producing nations.
The country has one of Europe’s largest reserves of diamonds and India is home to a number of diamond producing mines.
India also produces diamonds, but most of these are located in the south of the state.
