-The Telegraph Ranchi, July 6: Nagri villagers leading a violent agitation against proposed campuses of three national institutes of learning do not want political leaders to hijack their movement to get back the 218 acres acquired by the government in the ’50s. “Leaders like Dayamami Barla, Bandhu Tirkey, Stan Swami etc have misled us by saying they would find a legal and political solution to the problem. But the result is that...

Model community forestry initiatives in Orissa are defying Forest Department efforts to control and exploit the region’s forests. ‘Heaven is a forest of miles and miles of Mohua trees / And hell is a forest of miles and miles of Mohua trees with a forest guard in it!’ Thus goes a song of the Muria Adivasis in the forests of Bastar in central India. Encapsulated in this simple expression, however, is...

Implement land ceiling acts and enforce fifth and ninth schedule Radical left-wing resistance to the State has been festering in India since 1946, when the Communist Party of India began working in north Bengal and Telangana among landless scheduled castes and tribes who worked for a pittance in the lands of the upper-caste landowners in these areas. The root causes of this problem lie in the pernicious caste system of our...

-The Economic Times The Centre's efforts to ensure economic empowerment of tribals in forest areas received a fillip with the Maharashtra government's order to bring all joint forest management committees under the control of gram sabhas.  The state government resolution transferred all rights of minor forest produce and major timber to the gram sabha-elected joint forest management committees. Despite legal guarantees, many gram sabhas (village assemblies) are unable to have a final...

-Inclusion.in There is good news. And there’s bad news. The good news first. There’s been a bumper wheat crop and the granaries are overflowing. And the bad news? Where do we begin? A lot of that grain will rot. Millions will still remain hungry. Heavily in debt and distressed, farmers are committing suicide. Food prices are soaring. There’s more… Farmers don’t have money. Their land is too small and isn’t yielding much. Fertilisers and...