-The Hindu The draft Forest Policy re-emphasises production forestry, raising many ecological and social concerns Government policy documents are statements of goals, priorities and strategies. If old strategies have failed or circumstances have changed, they should be revised. Given that our Forest Policy was last revised in 1988, changes are perhaps overdue. The new draft Forest Policy 2018, however, ignores the lessons from this period and returns to the state-managed forestry of...

-Livemint.com The National Forest Policy will be an overarching policy for forest management, with the aim of bringing a minimum of one-third of India’s total geographical area under forest or tree cover New Delhi: India’s environment ministry has unveiled a draft of the new National Forest Policy (NFP) that proposes to restrict “schemes and projects which interfere with forests that cover steep slopes, catchments of rivers, lakes, and reservoirs, geologically unstable terrain...

-Down to Earth In Odisha, both these commodities are nationalised, thereby curtailing the rights of the people on them As the harvesting season for Bamboo and kendu leaf approaches in Odisha, tension is building between the forest-dependent communities and the forest department. In Kalahandi district, around 100 Gram Sabhas are planning to assert their rights over Bamboo and kendu leaf despite legal curtails. “In Kalahandi Jangal Manch meeting on February 28, we decided...

-Deccan Chronicle   The finance minister said the agricultural output of the country is at a record high and wage of farmers will be doubled by 2022.    New Delhi: The Narendra Modi-led NDA government presented the Union Budget 2018-19 on Thursday. In the last full-fledged Budget of the BJP government Finance Minister Arun Jaitley tabled a lot of proposals for the agriculture and the rural economy. For agiculture sector, the Budget 2018...

-The Hindu Business Line Gujarat result shows politicians and governments would pay attention to farmer woes only when they are hit where it hurts Agriculture is in the eye of the storm, and we must thank Gujarat elections for this turn of events. Agrarian distress is gaining eyeballs like never before. Farmers have tried all kinds of methods in the past, but to no avail. They committed suicide, but it didn’t matter....