A 13-member fact-finding team that visited Chintalnar, Morapally, Timmapuram and Tadmetla villages of Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh has found that the police claim that they had an encounter with Maoists in the jungles of Dantewada during March second week as “a hoax and far from reality.” “We have been inside these areas for two days, only to see that there was no ‘encounter' with Maoists as claimed by the police, which...
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Long way to go by PS Krishnan
Budget 2011-12 and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. THREE decades ago, in the early years of the Special Component Plan (SCP) for Scheduled Castes – very recently renamed inappropriately as Scheduled Castes Sub-Plan (SCSP) – Indira Gandhi on her return as Prime Minister wrote two historical D.O. letters dated March 12, 1980, one to Central Ministers and the other to State Chief Ministers, regarding the SCP in the Central...
More »Why was Niyamat Ansari Killed? : The Politics of NREGA and the Maoists by Avanish Kumar
The gruesome murder of NREGA activist Niyamat Ansari has shocked the progressive civil society and political groups in the country. According to reports (one, two), Niyamat Ansari had exposed a case of corruption in NREGA and an FIR was lodged against a former BDO and another Panchayat Sevak of Manika block, Latehar (Jharkhand). On 2nd March 2011, Niyamat Ansari was picked from his house and beaten to death. The reports...
More »States using law meant for tribals to gift forest land to the landless by Sreejiraj Eluvangal
In a bid to win the hearts of forest-based communities, the government will decriminalise the collection of traditional 'livelihood items' from the forests. The move comes even as a joint committee set up by the environment and tribal affairs ministries found several state governments guilty of using the three-year-old Forest Rights Act to distribute forest land to individuals. The committee, headed by Naresh Saxena, development expert and former secretary to the government...
More »In Cancun, protest breaks out against REDD by Meena Menon
Members of La Via Campesina and other groups condemn market-based solutionsHector Rodriguez, who runs an alternative radio station in Cancun called Reptil, decided on a novel way to protest the commercialisation of forestry.As hundreds of people marched to the venue of the United Nations Climate Change Conference on Tuesday, Mr. Rodriguez walked up to the posse of Mexican policemen with riot shields and launched into an impassioned plea to help...
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