-The Telegraph In the last two decades, forest and biodiversity conservation in the country has meant ruthless and unjust evictions of the people and communities living in their midst Earlier this month, a small hamlet called Bothli in the Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra’s Chandrapur district pressed for the legal recognition of its community forest rights. Wildlife Conservationists promptly filed a public interest litigation claiming that the people living in the...

-Down to Earth Supreme Court seeks update on power cables at Great Indian Bustard’s habitat The Supreme Court of India sought an update April 1, 2022 from the committee formed for making power lines underground in Rajasthan and Gujarat ordered a year ago.  The habitat of the state bird of Rajasthan — the Great Indian Bustard (GIB) or Godavan — is under threat due to the zigzag web of high-tension power lines through...

-Newsclick.in The move, paving the way for rampant hydrocarbon exploitation in and around some of the densest forests, will potentially benefit corporate bigwigs in the oil and natural gas sector. New Delhi: A Wildlife Conservation body under the Narendra Modi government has exempted oil and natural gas extraction from the definition of ‘mining’ activity, paving the way for rampant hydrocarbon exploitation in and around some of the densest forests of India which...

-Press release by Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN) dated 9th September, 2021 Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN), today, released its new report on forced evictions in India. Titled, Forced Evictions in India in 2020: A Grave Human Rights Crisis During the Pandemic, this report presents comprehensive data and an analysis of forced evictions and demolitions of homes of the urban and rural poor across the country in 2020. It...

-Scroll.in The result is a big mess, in the words of one official. In nine months since September, a file containing a proposal seeking environmental approval to upgrade a highway in Sikkim has travelled about 1,500 km from Shillong to Kolkata to Guwahati, before returning to rest in an office in Kolkata. Until last week, the file had not been examined, an official in the environment ministry said. The story of this file...