-GRISTMedia.com In the course of my work as part of a team set up to look into the socio-economic status of Adivasi communities, there were several things I learned about the Land Acquisition Act, 2013, and the amendments to it. Here are some important questions about land and the Act that we should be asking: * What is the State's relationship to land and its citizens? This a key question - and one...

-Business Standard Since it came to power in May 2014, the NDA government has been working to do away with the need for such consent from tribal village councils Five coal blocks up for allocation and auction in the first phase could get stuck in a land conflict. A total of 20 tribal village councils in the Hasdeo-Arand and Dharamjaigarh forest areas of Chhattisgarh have passed formal resolutions under the Forest Rights...

The tribal or the Scheduled Tribe communities constitute only 8.6 percent of India's population and yet, they are around 40 percent of those displaced due to ‘development’ projects. In the midst of a raging debate on the new Land Acquisition Ordinance, a new report brings out many such paradoxes of development versus displacement of India’s indigenous or Adivasi people. The report exposes the anomalies of land alienation, displacement and forced...

-The Hindu The absence of state accountability is at the core of issues facing tribal communities The Report of the High Level Committee on Socio-Economic, Health and Educational Status of Tribal Communities of India, under the chairmanship of sociologist Virginius Xaxa, was circulated last week. The 431-page report details the situation of tribal communities: Scheduled Tribes, de-notified tribes and particularly vulnerable tribal communities. Taking on board the findings and demands of social...

-The Hindu It will need a caring partnership between the Dongria Kondh, civil society organisations and the government to figure out how to navigate the very difficult terrain the tribals face Till last week, I'd never visited Niyamgiri, scene of the iconic fight between the Dongria Kondh tribal group and Vedanta, a powerful multinational corporation bent on mining in the area. So why have I titled this ‘revisiting Niyamgiri'? Partly because I've...