In the first of a series of reports on land rights, we look at the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, where there have been violent clashes between local villagers and police in a dispute over land. It's a hot summer day and the air is thick with smoke from the diesel-powered trucks carrying bricks, cement and sand. There is a long line of vehicles along the road as the trucks jostle...

Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra chairperson Avdhash Kaushal lashed out at the government on Wednesday for flawed policies that had retarded the development process in Uttarakhand in the name of environment conservation and made life miserable for both humans and wildlife. “There is an urgent need to change the Forest Conservation Act and Wild Life Protection Act which are colonial in nature and are also creating problems for people of Uttarakhand,”...

Exasperated with the public perception of its role, the Indian government appears keen to somehow abdicate its key sovereign function of making land available for economic development by dumping it on the private sector. This is wrong. The maintenance of up-to-date land records, the scientific identification of tracts for a shift from agricultural to non-agricultural uses and the smooth transfer of land assets are the functions of the sovereign. The...

-The Hindu   Rs.49 crore sanctioned, 31 temporary posts for the purpose Rs.150 to each BPL family as project expense Special Cabinet to work out details of 100-day action plan Chief Minister Oommen Chandy has said the State government is working towards providing Unique Identification (UID) number for all in one year. Briefing reporters after the weekly Cabinet meeting here on Wednesday, the Chief Minister said the Cabinet had sanctioned Rs.49 crore and 31 temporary...

Tribal people constitute close to 50 per cent of the population that has been displaced because of "developmental" activities. “IF you are to suffer, you should suffer in the interest of the country,” Jawaharlal Nehru has been quoted as telling the village residents to be displaced by the Hirakud dam in 1948. And so it has been for the past 64 years. People, mostly impoverished tribes, have been suffering because...