-The Hindu Their claims for forest land rights have been rejected under the Forest Rights Act of 2006 The Supreme Court on Thursday continued its stay on the eviction of lakhs of Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers whose claims for forest land rights have been rejected under the Forest Rights Act (FRA) of 2006. A Bench led by Justice Arun Mishra posted the case for hearing on November 26 and said...

-The Times of India Manisha Verma, principal secretary, tribal development department, Maharashtra talks to Sugandha Indulkar about The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 and related issues, with today being World Tribal Day. * What’s the precise positioning of the tribal welfare departments at the Centre and states on FRA? This is a seminal legislation. The preamble to the Act itself states that it aims...

-Down to Earth The employment scheme generated 20.23 average working days in the state against the mandated 100 days, according to a Punjabi University report A high incidence of illiteracy, low levels of education, a major lack of awareness and dependence on Panchayat members and sarpanches have led the much-publicised Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) to fail in Punjab. The scheme generated only 20.23 average days' employment a year...

-Business Standard Forest bureaucracy to get more policing powers, including higher immunity to use firearms and override Forest Rights Act New Delhi: The Union government has proposed an overhaul of the Indian Forest Act, 1927 which the British rulers imposed to take over Indian forests, use them to produce timber, while curtailing and extinguishing rights of millions. But, in the draft law to replace the colonial-era act, the Union government has proposed...

-The Hindu Sabotaging the Forest Rights Act damages democracy Since 1980, through the Forest Conservation Act (FCA), the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF) has “diverted for non-forest use” (bureaucratese for destroyed) over 1.5 million hectares of forest. How many Adivasis and forest-dwellers have been evicted by this ‘lawful’ forest destruction? Stripping these forests has yielded thousands of crores of rupees for corporations to which a bulk of these forestlands...