-The Hindu     The killings of Mahendra Karma and his colleagues call not for retributive violence but for a deeper reflection on the discontent among the tribals of central India and their dispossession In the summer of 2006, I had a long conversation with Mahendra Karma, the Chhattisgarh Congress leader who was killed in a terror attack by the Naxalites last week. I was not alone - with me were five other members...

-Tehelka Close to 30 percent of forests have been converted to Chir Pine monocultures displacing grazing rights of several communities like the Gaddis and Gujjars. There is no quantitative assessement of the impact of loss on people's lives The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers Act, or Recognition of forest rights Act - commonly known as the forest rights Act (FRA) was passed by Parliament in 2006 to address historical injustices...

-The Hindu   An open letter from Madhav Gadgil says Kasturirangan panel report will rob the region of its biodiversity Dear Dr. K. Kasturirangan, J.B.S. Haldane, the celebrated 19th-century scientist and humanist who quit England protesting its imperialistic invasion of Suez to become an Indian citizen, once said: "Reality is not only stranger than we suppose, but stranger than we CAN suppose!" I could never have imagined that you would be party to a...

-The Hindustan Times "My permission is not required nor my opinion is sought in matters relating to tribals. My voice goes unheard," tribal affairs minister V Kishore Chandra Deo told HT, referring to what he called limited powers of his ministry in tribal welfare. The tribal affairs ministry was set up in 1999 for an integrated socio-economic development of the tribals, who account for 10.4 crore of the population. In an embarrassment for...

-The Economic Times Three weeks ago, when the Supreme Court reopened the iron-ore mining door some more in Karnataka, miners in Orissa breathed a Rs 50,000 crore sigh of relief. Also in the dock for some offences of a similar nature, Orissa's iron-ore miners, who produce a third of this mineral that is critical to steel, had been dreading their fate, which lay in the hands of a Central government panel. The...