-Scroll.in First it refused to make Consent of forest dwellers mandatory for growing plantations on their lands, now it breaks the promise of even consulting them. The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change has drafted new rules that dilute the rights of Adivasis and other forest dwellers to independently decide how their traditional forestlands are used. The new rules, formulated in February, give the forest bureaucracy across the country the power...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Eminent advocate K.T.S. Tulsi has decided to take the lead among Indians in penning a living will, but most lawyers feel that Friday's Supreme Court judgment legalising passive euthanasia is open to misuse in a country notorious for property disputes. "I haven't yet written my living will but shall definitely do so," Tulsi, a Rajya Sabha member, told The Telegraph on Saturday while welcoming the judgment. The court said...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it would lay down comprehensive guidelines to protect inter-faith, inter-caste and intra-gotra couples whose marriages are opposed by society in the name of tradition. A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud reserved its verdict on an eight-year-old PIL filed by NGO ‘Shakti Vahini’ protesting against the violence unleashed against couples who...

-The Hindu A Supreme Court Bench will decide whether the law has to be interpreted expansively or in a narrow sense In July 2011, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government embarked on an ambitious project to rewrite the law on land acquisition. How the government acquired land from private parties had long been the subject of heated dispute, often resulting in violent conflict. Several previous governments had made attempts to amend the Land...

-Down to Earth The protests are in opposition to the vague position of the Rules on forest-dwelling communities in the compensatory afforestation process The draft Compensatory Afforestation Fund Rules, 2018, notified by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) on February 16, have sparked protests by tribal organisations in Odisha. The protests are due to the fact that the Rules are vague on the role of communities in...