Congress MP Jairam Ramesh on Saturday rejected Defence Minister Rajnath Singh's assertion that the Great Nicobar Islands (GNI) project is a strategically significant national initiative, contending that it is fundamentally a commercial enterprise.
In a letter written to Singh, Ramesh said the project's strategic rationale was being "invented" and "propagated to build a counter-narrative" against the evidence that the mega project would permanently destroy a unique ecosystem of extraordinarily rich biodiversity.