Lingaraj Azad was born into a Dalit family in Orissa, a state in eastern India.

[1] Anil Agarwal set up one of the world's largest aluminum smelting plants in the area, with a bauxite refinery at Lanjigarh at the foothills of the Niyamgiri Mountains.

It will also affect the water sources and ecosystems, thereby threatening the environment and the very source of sustenance for indigenous peoples, it says We will not give an inch of our mountain.. Anil Aggarwal's Vedanta on its part says that it does not want to grab local peoples land and is willing to negotiate with all stake holders.

[1] Azad counters that the subsistence tribal communities would receive will not survive the alienation from their native land and they cannot be compensated for such a loss.

[1] He participated in the yatra (Sanskrit for journey, used in the context of Indian politics to mean an "awareness campaign") conducted by the NAPM from Mumbai to Delhi against proposed mega-industrial corridor in 2013.