The Kerala Irrigation Department has sought permission for the transfer of forest land for constructing the Periyar dam. The executive engineer of the Minor Irrigation Department (MID), Kumily, has approached the Kerala Forest Department (KFD) with a request for allotting 50 hectares for the project. The KFD, however, is in a fix over the allocation of the land as it fears widespread environment and ecological imbalances in the Periyar Tiger Reserve,...

With the BRT Wildlife Sanctuary in Karnataka going to get a tiger reserve status, the Soligas living there face imminent eviction.NEVER before have the tigers of the Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple (BRT) Wildlife Sanctuary burned so bright, either in popular imagination or in administrative priority. With the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests approving “in principle” the status of a tiger reserve for the BRT sanctuary, the endangered cat has taken...

Chhattisgarh special prosecutor TC Pandya on Friday claimed that civil rights activist Dr Binayak Sen's wife Ilina was in correspondence with the ISI — a huge gaffe. For, the ISI she had links with was the Indian Social Institute, not the Pakistani intelligence agency. Pandya was deposing in a local sessions court and said that Sen had dealings not just with local Maoist networks but also international terrorist groups as well. He...

For the Human Rights Day in 2010 the Asian Human Rights Commission presents the reports on the state of human rights in eleven countries in Asia; Bangladesh, Burma, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, South Korea and Sri Lanka. The general picture that emerges is one of the failures of the states to carry out their obligations for the protection of people.Serious defects are evident in the area...

In a matter relating to Displacement of Adivasi population in Kokrajhar district of western Assam the Gauhati High Court accepted a status report from petitioners in the matter. Petitioners were displaced on account of violence in the 1980's against them and had approached the court seeking relief.Petitioners who were driven out of their homes during a communal riot at the time of autonomy movement of Bodo tribal community in Assam...