-The Hindu 'Grabbing private land and claiming it as its own makes the State an encroacher’ A citizen’s right to own private property is a fundamental right. The state cannot take possession of it without following due procedure and authority of law, the Supreme Court has held in a judgment. The state cannot trespass into the private property of a citizen and then claim ownership of the land in the name of ‘adverse...

-Livemint.com * The briefing to diplomats comes in the backdrop of Pakistan condemning Amit Shah’s move to scrap Article 370 * PM Narendra Modi is scheduled to travel to the US for the UN General Assembly session and address the session on 28 September New Delhi: India on Monday briefed all current members of the UN Security Council –five permanent members and 10 non-permanent members – hours after revoking the special status granted...

-TheWire.in Why asset redistribution is superior to income redistribution. Land and labour are two basic factors needed by rural people for income generation. While women have always played a key role in agricultural production, their importance both as workers and as farm managers has been growing in the last two decades as more men move to non-farm jobs – leading to an increased feminisation of agriculture. However, ownership of land is concentrated mostly...

-Down to Earth Reflections on Supreme Court order to evict ‘illegitimate’ tribals from the forests There is an ominous significance to the February 13, 2019 order of the Supreme Court on “illegitimate” forest-dwellers. When we first heard of it, we felt a rising dismay and shock at this judicial legitimation of unparalleled atrocity against the tribals. The order is nothing less than the final legitimised expropriation of the tribal communities (poor landless)...

-The Hindu * What does the scheme offer? The Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme, announced in the Budget earlier this month, aims to give ?6,000 a year to 12 crore farmer families who own up to two hectares of cultivable land. * What are the challenges? The number of beneficiaries comes from the number of land holdings of two hectares or less, according to the last agricultural land census. However, the guidelines say...