-Livemint.com The tribal belt of south Bengal has become ground zero of a grim battle with an ever-increasing population of visiting elephants The elephants are here,” Jiten Singh declares without any show of emotion as we arrive at Tapoban (Madhyapara) village. About 65km from Kharagpur town, Tapoban is a tribal hamlet deep within the vast forested terrain known as Jangalmahal, in West Bengal. It is nearing dusk. Ordinarily, the village would be...

-Caravandaily.com The tribal representation appealed to President of India to use his authority as guardian of the constitution to prevent this planned mass evictions as the projects are ill conceived and constitute a form of land grab. NEW DELHI: As about three lakh people from tribal communities in Jharkhand are facing eviction from their homes due to some projects, their representative group met President of India Ram Nath Kovind here on Friday...

-Livemint.com Jean Drèze’s new book of essays defends action-oriented research, especially in the field of development economics Designing government policy to eradicate corruption is not easy. As the “demonetization” exercise demonstrated, such earnest endeavours can have big and unintended consequences and they often might not proceed according to plan. Although not concerning itself with demonetization, a new book by economist Jean Drèze delves into the challenges of making public policy for India....

-The Telegraph Bhubaneswar: The Naveen Patnaik government is planning to provide edible oil, salt and finger millet - considered one of the most nutritious cereals - to the poor at subisidised rates under the food security scheme. It plans to implement a food security scheme on line of the National Food Security (NFS) programme. "Work is on to prepare a detailed plan to this effect. We will bring it in the coming annual...

-The Times of India BHUBANESWAR: Union tribal affairs minister Jual Oram asked chief minister Naveen Patnaik to fix the minimum support price (MSP) of minor forest produce (MFP) gathered by tribals. "I would like Odisha to provide MSP to the tribals at the haats where they bring the forest produce to sell. This will protect them from any possible exploitation by middlemen and traders," said Jual in his letter to Naveen on...