-Mainstream Weekly Intense and motivated propaganda, powerful national and international diplomatic pressure, verging on pure and simple arms-twisting of the kind the Third World has been facing for decades by means of the active role of the econo-mic hit-men in the policy establishments, huge cash-back lobbying, both in India and abroad, blunt attempts to Bamboozle the persons holding key positions in India’s policy establishment through a combination of hissing and kissing...

-The Economic Times A new book by Bibek Debroy on Gujarat looks at how this much-talked about state has performed in economic terms. The author argues history, luck and administrative clarity have been the determining factors. There has been a discernible pickup in Gujarat's growth performance since the 10th Plan (2002-07), the five-year Plans being natural periods for breaking up the timeline. It's tempting to argue that there is nothing exceptional in...

-The Times of India Environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan has overruled objections from her officials to break the forest bureaucracy's monopoly over the annual Rs 10,000 crore Bamboo trade and declared it a 'minor forest produce' instead of a 'tree' under forest laws. This will allow tribals, instead of forest departments, to harvest and auction Bamboo, which is one of the major raw materials for the paper, pulp and board industry, from their...

-The Hindu Amid reports that Maoists are against according Bamboo rights to Adivasis in Gadchiroli, Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh has asked the Chief Ministers of six Naxal-hit States to emulate the success of Mendha Lekha village in that Maharashtra district. Mendha Lekha became the first village with Community Forest Rights (CFR) to be given transit passbooks to harvest and sell Bamboo in April 2011. Since then other villages in Gadchiroli...

-The Telegraph Bengal should follow in the footsteps of Mendha Lekha if it wants to beat back Maoists. And so should Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. That’s what rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has advised in a letter he wrote last week. Create “more Mendha Lekhas”, he said, referring to the Maharashtra village that gave villagers community rights over minor forest resource and transit permit to sell such produce. For thousands...