The Supreme Court judgment has directed the gram sabhas to decide whether or not Vedanta's mining project can go ahead in Niyamgiri Hills. All the gram sabhas rejected the mining project, in a referendum. Surya Shankar Das, activist and film maker from Odisha, in a discussion with Newsclick, says that it is for the first time that an environmental referendum was held on such projects. It is also for the first time that gram sabhas were given the right to decide whether mining has to happen or not. Although these provisions, for the people to choose, are there in the law, they were never implemented. Das says these developments give a new lease of hope for people's struggles in the future.