where does people living in european countries such as britan get their beautiful granite stones? from india. great news for india. now india is an exporter of stones and it is a booming multi billion dollar industry in india providing employement, jobs and development india.

behind this 'development' lies the sad story of environmental abuse, child labour, dangerous working conditions that is seldom seen by the middle class and wealthy europeans who buy these stones.

bbc captures this beautifully in their costing the earth program. from the link,

Suppliers say it’s cheaper to produce stone overseas, and that it costs more to transport from London to Aberdeen than to bring it by boat from India. Strict environmental regulations and higher production costs have reduced the British stone industry to just a few quarries, so British stone is less available and much more expensive than foreign varieties.

the full story is also at bbc website.

"People have found it easy to just walk into the forest and start mining," Mr Saldhana said.
"Obviously it means the government has failed in regulating... and senior bureaucrats have colluded to just look the other way when this has been happening for the last five or six years."

using development as the mantra, the govt has become middlemen by turning a blind eye to the destruction of environment and abuse of women and children working as bonded labourers. development - fake development that is happening in india - has several faces and this story is one of them.