-Down to Earth These rules, if implemented, will lead to dilution of the Forest Rights Act The campaign for rights under the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006, received yet another setback in November 2015, according to government orders which recently became available in the public domain. The Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA), the nodal agency for the implementation of the Act, issued a memorandum endorsing the Village Forest Rules (VFR) notified...

-The Financial Express Turning agriculture around should be the top priority of government in the new year. India became the world’s fastest-growing economy in 2015. Indian agriculture, however, fared much worse. Agriculture grew only by 0.2% in FY15. Two consecutive years of drought, unseasonal rains in rabi season and falling food prices in global markets have driven farmers to desperation. Turning agriculture around should be the top priority of government in the...

-The Times of India Jaipur: An auto rickshaw driver got paper sheets weighing 39 kg in reply to an RTI query he filed seeking information on the 1.5 bigahs of his father's cultivable Land that was acquired by Rajasthan State Industrial Development and Investment Corporation (RIICO) some 20 years ago in Udaipur's Bhoiyon-ki-pancholi village. The reason was that he suspected foul play as there were others in the village whose Land had...

-Livemint.com The delays in Karnataka does not portend well for six other states which have been cleared for drought relief and three more who are yet to hear from the Centre Bengaluru: Farmers in Karnataka who lost crops due to poor rains during last year’s June-September monsoon are expected to get central relief only by May this year due to delays in gathering farmers’ bank account details and logistics hurdles due...

-The Indian Express A renewed funding squeeze may undermine MGNREGA’s recent revival, fear civil society activists. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme which guarantees 100 days of wage employment per year to rural households, may have staged a revival in the last two quarters after showing a declining trend in person-days generation during the first year of the Narendra Modi government. But the turnaround could well be temporary,...