That's an uncharitable take. The proposed observatory was through pristine dense forest, and one of the most important elephant corridors in Asia. It was opposed by the democratically elected government, and litigated in courts in an open and transparent way. The physics gains do not outweigh the environmental cost, and the fact that scientists were able to get valuable data from an observatory in the lifeless Antarctic is further justification not to build this.

As a trained high-energy physicist who loves the subject, I wouldn't want the destruction of forests, tiger and elephant habitats (or any other habitats) for "science". There are always alternatives - alternate sites, alternate designs, alternate experiments.

One of my primary disagreements with my friends and colleagues was based on their insistence that opposing a new facility was anti-science and only done by the "uneducated". IMO, while this was true for a small subset of opposing factions, there were often real reasons for not building which took realities outside research into consideration.

isnt theni the place where hemp farm were destroyed in 1800?