-Hindustan Times New Delhi: India’s forests are worth as much as the combined market value of BSE-listed companies with a notional value of Rs 115 trillion but the money collected from diverting parts of this land for industries won’t go to communities that live in and are dependent on the jungles. The Union environment ministry accepted most recommendations of a 2013 expert panel that hiked the rates at which industrialists pay for...

-Business Standard The Compensatory Afforestation Fund Bill was passed by Parliament amid intense debate over how best India can conserve its forests * Why were the Congress, the Left and tribal activists, including some RSS-affiliated bodies, against the Bill in its present shape? They wanted that the money not be spent on traditional forest lands without the consent of tribals and other forest dwellers. * Why did they want so? India has at least 400...

-The Economic Times The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers Act (Recognition of forest rights) Act, 2006, or the forest rights Act (FRA), is among India's most important legislation since 2005, along with the Right to Information Act and the Right to Education Act. FRA, which was passed in Parliament in December 2006 and which became operational in January 2008, recognises the rights of forest dwellers, including Scheduled Tribes and others,...

-Hindustan Times Eight out of 10 claims for land title by forest dwellers under the forest rights Act were rejected last year, tribal affairs ministry data shows. The Opposition is at the crosshairs with Centre in Rajya Sabha over passage of the Compensatory Afforestation Bill, which critics say will further undercut tribal rights and harm environment by introducing government plantations in areas traditionally used by tribal communities. The forest rights Act (FRA), in...

-The Indian Express The current bill does not take into account any of the criticism voiced against an earlier version, proposed under the UPA government in 2013; it continues to ignore the forest rights Act. A recent controversial bill that outlines a framework for the utilisation of compensatory afforestation funds is being strongly contested and challenged by civil society actors. It raises important questions that are fundamentally connected to forests: Whose...