-The Hindu Hundreds of government schools, especially in tribal-dominated districts, have been shut down over the past year. Elizabeth Kuruvilla reports on the closures, the mushrooming of private schools, and the battles waged by tribal villages to keep state-funded local schools open It’s a little past four in the afternoon, the time when schools ring their closing bells in the Hatsesikhal cluster of Odisha’s tribal-dominated Rayagada district. Just before Sekhal Primary School...

-Down to Earth Activists say that in 3 villages of Kalahand district, the Odisha forest department is imposing on the rights of forest dwellers to dispose bamboo, guaranteed under FRA More than two weeks after the cabinet cleared an amendment in the India Forest Act, 1927 (IFA) to deregulate trade of bamboo grown on non-forest land, forest dwellers from Odisha are complaining that the state forest department is not letting them...

-Down to Earth States exploit the delay in the drafting of rules for the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act to assert rights over land claimed by communities under the Forest Rights Act More than a year after Parliament passed the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act 2016 (CAF), the Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) is yet to roll out the mandatory rules to implement it. In fact, the ministry in November...

-The Times of India BHUBANESWAR: There are more than 62 lakh families in the state registered under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), but less than one per cent, or around 6,000, get the full quota of 100 days' work. The job scheme which has been running in the state since February 2006 provides a guarantee of 100 days of work in a financial year to rural households. If the...

-The Economic Times PANCHKULA: The otherwise macho image of Haryana police took a severe beating during the Panchkula violence, as the local custodians of town were the first to show their back, post the conviction of Sirsa Dera chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim on Friday. Emboldening the Dera followers to have a free show, leaving the sole lady bureaucrat present amidst the arson– 2009 batch IAS officer - Panchkula Deputy Commissioner -- Gauri...