-The Hindu Land should be given back if the project does not take off: SC New Delhi: Even as several prominent private builders have come under suspicion for delayed completion of housing projects, the Supreme Court has declared land a “scarce natural resource” and forbidden the government from using its powers of compulsory land acquisition to strip poor farmers of their livelihood only to transfer such land to private builders to feed...

-The Hindu People’s objections, from Chhattisgarh to Odisha, against large development projects have brought out the real power of the Forest Rights Act of 2006. Democracy is alive and kicking in India. No, I am not referring to the Assembly elections. It is unfortunate that the term democracy has been reduced to the drama of periodic elections and the subsequent reliance of the electorate on politicians and bureaucrats. When these powerful few...

-Business Standard Claims Bill did not respect rights of people under the Forest Rights Act and gave unbridled control over thousands of crores to forest bureaucracy On Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi regretted that the Compensatory Afforestation (CA) Bill could not be passed in the budget session of Parliament. On Saturday, outgoing Rajya Sabha member from Congress Jairam Ramesh hit back at the NDA, saying the reason the bill could not be...

-The Times of India Ahmedabad: Salt pan workers, fishing community and maldharis in the Little Rann of Kutch (LRK) should be given their respective rights - salt making, fishing and pastoral land grazing. When denied these rights, locals illegally make salt and graze cattle in the forest area, leading to hassles with the forest department, a study commissioned by the Union ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) has found. During the 2012...

-The Times of India It would be fair to the impoverished tribals of Attapadi if both chief minister Oommen Chandy and CM-in-waiting Pinarayi Vijayan get their acts right before politicizing the tribal issue and blaming Prime Minster Narendra Modi for 'insulting the people of Kerala.' A detailed study done by research scholars of Chittur College, Palakkad - analyzing the livelihood status of tribes in Attapadi block revealed that the Human Development...