-TheWire.in To oppose the forest department’s plan to limit open grazing, the pastoral community is formally pursuing their collective land rights through the Forest Rights Act. The sun has not yet decided to rise. It’s pitch black out but a group of Maldharis has already assembled for the last session of this year’s milking competition. Their massive buffalos are majestically adorned with intricate garlands and colourful necklaces. The panch (group of five...

-The Times of India Junagadh: At a time when population of Asiatic lions is spreading outside of the Gir wildlife sanctuary into fringe areas leading to rise in man-animal conflict, hundreds of Maldharis (traditional inhabitants of Gir forest), who had moved out of the protected forest after taking benefit of government's resettlement scheme in 1980s have returned to the forest over the past two decades. The state forest department has ordered a...

-The Times of India Ahmedabad: Salt pan workers, fishing community and Maldharis in the Little Rann of Kutch (LRK) should be given their respective rights - salt making, fishing and pastoral land grazing. When denied these rights, locals illegally make salt and graze cattle in the forest area, leading to hassles with the forest department, a study commissioned by the Union ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) has found. During the 2012...

-The Indian Express Government’s insistence on acquisition is rooted in a rush to impose the Gujarat model on the rest of India. The development agenda of the Narendra Modi government implies industrialisation. The BJP’s 2014 mandate was indeed for job creation. The “neo-middle class”, which Modi defined when he was CM of Gujarat as made up of aspiring city dwellers who have just emerged from poverty, supported him more widely than the...