Groups from across India gathered in Delhi recently to assess the Forest Rights Act’s journey since 2006. The law is often dubbed as ‘landmark’ because it ended the age-old illegality surrounding communities living in forest areas by entitling them to individual and community land title. It also went beyond the colonial paradigms of the forest bureaucracy to recognise community efforts at protecting and preserving forests. Numerous groups and individuals working...

-The Business Standard Kolkata: Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee, Ford Foundation International professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has slammed the government's Right To Education (RTE) programme. This, he said, was only a step towards ensuring a means of livelihood for teachers. Banerjee said the programme, implemented in 2009, lacked sense. He said he wasn't hopeful about the outcome of the initiative. "It is simply for the teachers, by the teachers,...

-The Economic Times Finance Minister P Chidambaram has warned corporate bigwigs against wilful defaults, reminding promoters that it was their duty to bring in additional capital if their companies got into trouble. "We cannot have an affluent promoter and a sick company," he said, in an apparent reference to the collapse of Kingfisher Airlines, owned by the flamboyant Vijay Mallya. Banks are stuck with nearly Rs 7,000 crore worth of loans they...

-Outlook The US is going ahead with its resolution against Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva as the Rajapaksha government has failed to fulfill its international obligations, which it promised after the fall of the LTTE, the Obama Administration said today. Without naming any one, State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland told reporters at her daily news conference that the US is working with a lot of governments who...

-The Hindu Disagreements within the government seem to have stalled any attempts at ensuring that the UPA regime’s flagship rural job guarantee scheme pays minimum wages in all States. While the Rural Development Ministry has made a deal with the activists who took the government to court over the matter, strong opposition from the Finance Ministry has reportedly stalled any move to amend the law. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act,...