-Press Release by All India Forum of Forest Movements (AIFFM), dated February 22, 2019 On 13 February, the Supreme Court of India, hearing a decade-old petition challenging the constitutional validity of the Forest Rights Act, 2006, ordered that forest dwellers whose claims for recognition of forest rights have been rejected would have to be evicted in a summary and time-bound manner. The order contains separate instructions for each state government to...

-TheWire.in The first phase of the survey by the labour department also found that most child labourers do not attend school. New Delhi: A sample survey by the Telangana labour department has found between 80-90% of child labourers in the state belong to Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities. According to The News Minute, the first phase of the survey across 10 districts in 56 mandals identified 9,724 child labourers. Most of these...

-TheWire.in With the 2019 elections around the corner, political parties should step up to the plate and display their commitment to children’s nutrition. This week, the prime minister made headlines by serving midday meals supplied by  Akshaya Patra at a school in Uttar Pradesh’s Vrindavan. While he engaged in banter with the children about being late, one of the students wittily interjected that she didn’t mind as she had already eaten at home. While...

-Business Standard Court gives states till July 27 to evict tribals based on a petition filed by wildlife groups questioning the validity of the Forest Rights Act. New Delhi: The Supreme Court has ordered the forced eviction of more than 1,000,000 tribal and other forest-dwelling households from forestlands across 16 states after the government failed to defend a law protecting their rights. The final country-wide numbers of forced evictions are likely to rise...

-Hindustan Times The law provides for giving land rights to those living on forest land for at least three generations before December 31, 2005. The Supreme Court has asked the governments of 17 states to evict an estimated one million tribal and other households living in forests after their claims of the right to live in forests were rejected under the Forest Rights Act. The court has asked the evictions to be...