BharatNotes Bauxite
nounUsage in a UPSC answer
India's substantial bauxite reserves, concentrated in the ecologically fragile and tribal-dominated Eastern Ghats, place the imperative of aluminium-led industrialisation in direct tension with constitutional safeguards for forest rights and environmental sustainability.
Synonyms
Word Family
bauxite (n), bauxitic (adj), bauxites (n pl); No standard verb or further derivatives in English
Root
Named after Les Baux-de-Provence, France (Provençal Li Baus, the precipices) + mineral suffix -ite; described 1821.
Etymology
Named after Les Baux-de-Provence in southern France, where the mineral was first described by French geologist Pierre Berthier in 1821; from the Provencal place name Li Baus ("the precipices") + the mineral suffix -ite.
Memory Hook
Bauxite comes from Les BAUX in France - picture mining reddish "BOX-ite" rock to crack open the BOX that holds aluminium.
How This Word Works in UPSC Writing
The principal ore of aluminium, produced where lateritisation is intense enough to concentrate aluminium oxides. The processing chain explains the industry's geography and should be stated in stages: bauxite is refined into alumina, and alumina is then smelted into aluminium by electrolysis, a step so electricity-intensive that smelters locate near cheap power and aluminium is sometimes described as solid electricity. India's reserves are concentrated in the Eastern Ghats of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh, with deposits in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, which places much of the resource under forest and in areas inhabited by scheduled tribes. That collision produced the Niyamgiri litigation, where the Supreme Court in Orissa Mining Corporation v Ministry of Environment and Forests (18-Apr-2013) held that the gram sabhas must decide the Dongria Kondh community's claims under the Forest Rights Act, 2006. They rejected mining, and clearance was refused.
Don’t Confuse It With
Bauxite is the ore, alumina the purified aluminium oxide extracted from it, and aluminium the metal obtained from alumina by electrolysis, three stages frequently collapsed into one in loose writing. Laterite is the parent material whose extreme leaching concentrates the aluminium. A reserve is that part of a resource which can be extracted economically at current prices and technology, which is why reserve figures shift without any new deposit being found.
Hindi Meaning
बॉक्साइट; एल्युमिनियम for aluminium and एल्यूमिना for alumina.
Common Questions
- Why are aluminium smelters located near cheap electricity?
- Because smelting alumina into aluminium by electrolysis consumes very large amounts of power, so energy cost dominates the economics of production.
- What did the Supreme Court decide in the Niyamgiri case?
- In its 2013 judgment it referred the question of bauxite mining to the local gram sabhas, holding that they must decide the community's religious and cultural claims under the Forest Rights Act, 2006.
Seen in UPSC Question Papers
- Prelims 2012 — Economic Geography
Real UPSC previous-year questions whose text uses “Bauxite” — proof this word earns its place on your list.
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