-The Hindu   The Rajasthan Cabinet on Monday put its seal of approval on a controversial decision to give khatedari rights to over 30,000 farmers occupying the custodian land in Alwar, Bharatpur, Hanumangarh and Sriganganagar districts, vacated mostly be those driven out of the State during the Partition, by paying a nominal regularisation fee. The farmers, whose ancestors were allotted the custodian land, were earlier required to pay 25 per cent of the...

While imposing a ban on mining in Karnataka’s Bellary district in July this year, the Supreme Court had reasoned that the massive environmental damage caused by excessive mining impinges on the constitutional right to life. In neighbouring Goa, the latest state rocked by a mining scandal, the destruction could be on an even larger scale if one compares mining figures and relates these to the areas of the large district and...

Purpose of RTI Act will be lost if killings continue, says CPI(M) member The murder of RTI activist Shehla Masood in Bhopal found an echo in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday with a Communist Party of India (Marxist) member expressing serious concern over the killings across the country and demanding steps to protect whistleblowers. Raising the issue during the Zero Hour, Moin-ul-Hassan said the RTI activist was killed on a day when...

Over the last one year, villagers of Ghati in Gadchiroli have kept timber out of the forest department’s reach, saying it belongs to them under the provisions of the FRA, short for Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest-Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act. The FRA recognises their rights only on non-timber minor forest produce but the villagers have interpreted it to include all trees. They say minor forest produces like mahua,...

Tribal people constitute close to 50 per cent of the population that has been displaced because of "developmental" activities. “IF you are to suffer, you should suffer in the interest of the country,” Jawaharlal Nehru has been quoted as telling the village residents to be displaced by the Hirakud dam in 1948. And so it has been for the past 64 years. People, mostly impoverished tribes, have been suffering because...