Cairns Oil & Gas, an arm of London-headquartered Vedanta, has been granted approval to conduct an environmental impact assessment (EIA) for oil and gas exploration in the southern states of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, triggering a political storm in this election season. The Indian government gave the nod to Cairns India to start an EIA across 116 onshore and offshore exploration sites this week, with several ruling and opposition political parties in the two states making it a political issue amidst ongoing national elections and vowing to stop Cairns from going ahead.
