-Hindustan Times Eight out of 10 claims for land title by forest dwellers under the Forest Rights Act were rejected last year, tribal affairs ministry data shows. The Opposition is at the crosshairs with Centre in Rajya Sabha over passage of the Compensatory Afforestation Bill, which critics say will further undercut tribal rights and harm environment by introducing government plantations in areas traditionally used by tribal communities. The Forest Rights Act (FRA), in...

-The Indian Express The current bill does not take into account any of the criticism voiced against an earlier version, proposed under the UPA government in 2013; it continues to ignore the Forest Rights Act. A recent controversial bill that outlines a framework for the utilisation of compensatory afforestation funds is being strongly contested and challenged by civil society actors. It raises important questions that are fundamentally connected to forests: Whose...

-Hindustan Times New Delhi: In chasing higher and higher GDP growth rates, India tends to gloss over two vital facts. One, farm growth cuts poverty twice as fast as industrial growth. Two, a 1% rise in agricultural output raises industrial production by 0.5% and national income by 0.7%, according to one calculation. In other words, the country’s fortunes are structurally tied to its farmers. Two-thirds of Indians rely on a farm-based income....

-Frontline The inability to resolve pressing problems with respect to the production, distribution and availability of food is one of the important failures of the entire economic reform process. IN the fateful month of July 1991, when the devaluation of the Indian rupee presaged the introduction of a whole series of liberalising economic reforms, agriculture was very far from the minds of most policymakers and commentators. The immediate focus was on...

-The Hindu India needs to formulate adaptation strategies to global warming at the State level and demonstrate if and how these could be meaningful for the country as a whole Kicking off to a warm start, the first few months of 2016 were close to 1.5° Celsius higher than average global temperatures for at least 10,000 years prior to the 19th century. At the Paris Conference of Parties (COP-21) last December, world...