-National Herald Agriculture, food and trade policy expert Devinder Sharma writes: “My understanding is that only agriculture can reboot the economy, sustain millions of livelihoods, and reduce global warming.” At a time when Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz says that neo-liberalism is ‘dead and buried’, and the world as a result is increasingly grappling with the gigantic problems of rising unemployment, gnawing inequality and climatic change reaching a tripping point, agriculture alone has...

-IANS Former Gujarat BJP MP Dinu Bogha Solanki has been convicted in the murder of RTI activist Amit Jethva. The CBI judge had to twice seek security for self and family while hearing the case A Special Court of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) here on Saturday convicted former Gujarat BJP MP Dinu Bogha Solanki in the murder of RTI activist Amit Jethva. The court also convicted six others in the...

-Down to Earth Government cites increasing pollution and heatwave in the state as reason for the ban The Government of Bihar recently banned felling of trees, citing increasing pollution as well as a fatal heatwave. Trees on private land, however, can be felled in the absence of a tree-protection Act in Bihar. The current order was passed under the Forest Conservation Act, DK Shukla, principal chief conservator of Forests, told Down To Earth (DTE)....

-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 It is shocking that a democratic government is seeking to strengthen the colonial-era Indian Forest Act The Indian Forest Act, 1927 was a remarkable piece of expropriation in the name of conservation. The British government carried out one of the largest land expropriations in history, where the rights to occupy and use Forests were transferred from communities with customary and historical property rights to the colonial Central government. The act...