-The Indian Express Latest National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data shows reported crimes against SCs increased by 5.5 per cent in 2016 while crimes against STs has increased by 4.7 per cent. At a time when cases of atrocities against Dalits and adivasis have increased despite low conviction rates, rights groups said Tuesday’s Supreme Court order would reverse many gains made after amen-ding the Atrocities Act in 2015. The Supreme Court order, many...

-The Hindu Farming must be treated as a market-based enterprise and made viable on its own terms The week-long farmers’ march which reached Mumbai earlier this month, on the anniversary of Gandhi’s Dandi March of 1930, was unprecedented in many ways. It was mostly silent and disciplined, mostly leaderless, non-disruptive and non-violent, and well organised. It received the sympathy of middle class city dwellers, food and water from bystanders, free medical services...

-The Indian Express The demand is a call for upholding local practices of belonging On March 12, about 50,000 farmers reached Mumbai, walking 165 km in the hope that their elected representatives would listen when they spoke. A majority of these farmers were adivasis and one of their demands was the implementation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA) and through it, their land rights. The FRA was enacted in 2006 with the...

-Scroll.in First it refused to make consent of forest dwellers mandatory for growing plantations on their lands, now it breaks the promise of even consulting them. The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change has drafted new rules that dilute the rights of adivasis and other forest dwellers to independently decide how their traditional forestlands are used. The new rules, formulated in February, give the forest bureaucracy across the country the power...

-NDTV The Azad Maidan in Mumbai turned into a "sea of red" as thousands of farmers, carrying red flags, converged here after walking 180 kms from Nashik Mumbai: The Devendra Fadnavis government of Maharashtra has agreed to the demands of thousands of protesting farmers who have been pouring into Mumbai for the last two days. The government has given its acceptance in writing, said state minister Chandrakant Patil, after a delegation...