-The Indian Express The demand is a call for upholding local practices of belonging On March 12, about 50,000 farmers reached Mumbai, walking 165 km in the hope that their elected representatives would listen when they spoke. A majority of these farmers were Adivasis and one of their demands was the implementation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA) and through it, their land rights. The FRA was enacted in 2006 with the...

-The Hindu Girls won’t marry into any family from Gudatipally in Telangana that is about to be submerged GUDATIPALLY (Telangana): Apart from the usual challenges of making a decent living, young men from Gudatipally village in Telangana’s Siddipet district are faced with a unique problem: they cannot find girls to marry. The reason? None of them have a convincing answer to a simple question from the father of the bride: ‘Where will...

-The Indian Express Forest Rights Act is not an obstacle to growth. Its non-implementation will be politically counter-productive. The farmers’ and forest dwellers’ march from Nashik to Mumbai, and the Maharashtra government’s decision to approve most of their demands within the next six months, has established the fact that land and forest rights are going to be determining factors for political establishments across India. The protest in Mumbai tells us that a...

-PTI Mumbai: Farmers have "reclaimed" 125 acres in Maharashtra's Ahmednagar district, claiming that bank fraud accused Nirav Modi had acquired their plots at prices below the market rate. A group of over 200 farmers, who arrived in bullock carts at Khandala in Karjat tehsil, symbolically reoccupied the land, ploughing a part of it using a tractor. The farmers said they would start cultivation on the entire tract soon. They said the plots had...

-The Indian Express The country’s politics has ignored the farmers. Perhaps it is time they change the country’s politics Farmers in villages across the country have felt demeaned and disturbed by the insensitivity of successive governments at the Centre and in the states. The same anguish was felt by the agriculturists who walked more than 160 km from Nashik to Mumbai. The country’s politics has ignored farmers. Perhaps it is time that...