-The Hindu In recent months, many Adivasi villages in Jharkhand have put up giant plaques declaring their gram sabha as the only sovereign authority and banning ‘outsiders’ from their area. Amarnath Tewary reports on a political movement that is gathering steam across the State’s tribal belt It is high noon at the government middle school in the heart of Maoist-affected Arki block in Jharkhand’s Khunti district. Over 100 Adivasi villagers have gathered...
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Odisha tribal organisations protest against draft CAF Rules -Ishan Kukreti
-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...
More »Illegal transfers: Adivasis in Chhattisgarh plan to criminally prosecute firms that hold their land -Raksha Kumar
-Scroll.in According to the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996, land owned by Adivasis cannot be transferred to non-Adivasis. It was 2009. Arjun Singh Manjhi of Bhengari village in Raigarh district of Chhattisgarh wanted some money to fix his leaking roof. Since he had small plots of land in different parts of the village, he decided to sell one of them to meet his expenses. He sold one acre to...
More »Decisions of the people, by the people, for the people -Ashish Kothari
-The Hindu People’s objections, from Chhattisgarh to Odisha, against large development projects have brought out the real power of the Forest Rights Act of 2006. Democracy is alive and kicking in India. No, I am not referring to the Assembly elections. It is unfortunate that the term democracy has been reduced to the drama of periodic elections and the subsequent reliance of the electorate on politicians and bureaucrats. When these powerful few...
More »Contested Spaces, Democratic Rights: People and Forests Today -Ajay Dandekar
-Economic and Political Weekly The Maharashtra government's village forest rules seek to overturn the rights regime established in the letter of the law by the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act and the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act 1996 in terms of both community rights, as well as the rights over minor forest produce. Moreover, the rules write away the future rights of...
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