-The Telegraph In the last two decades, forest and biodiversity conservation in the country has meant ruthless and unjust evictions of the people and communities living in their midst Earlier this month, a small hamlet called Bothli in the Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra’s Chandrapur district pressed for the legal recognition of its community forest rights. Wildlife conservationists promptly filed a public interest litigation claiming that the people living in the...

-TheWire.in The MoEFCC's recent decision to exclude new-gen GM plants from the ambit of existing biosafety rules endangers our food system, food exports, farmers' rights over their crops and the country's biological heritage for the sake of corporate profits. Christmas came early for Big Biotech companies and their allied seeds multipliers as the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has recently, through an office memorandum, excluded the new generation genetically...

-Newsclick.in Recently, many tribal activists, journalists and human rights activists from Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra came to the Press Club of India to highlight the contemporary situation in the tribal belt of India. New Delhi: Understanding the scope and reasons for anti-tribal violence necessitates a state-by-state comparison. Tribals are oppressed in various ways in every state. The sex industry rings exploit tribals in Madhya Pradesh, while counter-insurgency operations against Maoists in Jharkhand,...

-Newsclick.in The forest rights Act aims to reverse the historical injustice meted out to tribals, ensure their land tenure and livelihood. Jaipur: Vishram had applied twice for a patta under the forest rights Act (FRA), 2006, but without success. A member of the Bhil community in Rajasthan, Vishram, who belongs to Rajasthan’s Talwara village, is always apprehensive about the future.    “We have been staying at the same place for three generations. Though...

-TheWire.in The manifestoes of major political parties in the fray in all five states promise both great infrastructure development and greater environmental safeguards. Kochi: In February and March, people in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur will vote to elect their next chief ministers and ruling parties. If not at any other time of the year, the public consciousness of environmental issues is heightened in these states today, as both the...