-The Telegraph New Delhi: Rahul Gandhi now plans to reach out to day labourers and tribals like he did with farmers and Dalits last year, raising alleged dilution of the legal framework the UPA government had built for them. The Congress has drawn up a nationwide campaign against alleged dilution of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, which covers the lowest rungs of job seekers. It also plans to forcefully...

-Down to Earth These rules, if implemented, will lead to dilution of the Forest Rights Act The campaign for rights under the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006, received yet another setback in November 2015, according to government orders which recently became available in the public domain. The Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA), the nodal agency for the implementation of the Act, issued a memorandum endorsing the Village Forest Rules (VFR) notified...

-The Hindu Hundreds of landless farmers, agricultural workers and labourers from across 20 States assembled at Jantar Mantar here on Tuesday under a joint platform ‘Bhumi Adhikar Andolan’ (Land Rights Movement) and observed December 15 (Forest Rights Day) as ‘Chetavni Divas’ — day of challenge and warning. Addressing a gathering, social activist Medha Patkar said the Forest Rights Act (FRA) was enacted in 2006, but successive governments have never taken efforts...

-The Hindu Business Line Nine years after a landmark law empowering local communities, thousands of forest villages across India struggle to regain their traditional rights over resources and livelihoods Sundar Singh Rabha always carries a certain file folder. He holds it against himself in a hot tin car as it jangles along forest roads towards village Shalkumar, in a northern corner of West Bengal. His phone rings without respite. Every few minutes,...

-Hindustan Times Several BJP-ruled states have brought rules and orders that could scuttle implementation of the forest rights act (FRA), reveal documents available with Hindustan Times.   The 2006 law upholds consent of villagers to divert forestland for industrial projects, considered a stumbling block to the Union government’s push for industries. The three forest-rich states of Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Maharashtra, which are home to a sizeable tribal population, have come up with rules...