-The Hindu The Act grants legal recognition to the rights of traditional forest dwelling communities Jawhar (Thane): The Additional Collector's headquarter here was abuzz even before its gates opened on Monday morning. Around 100 tribals from various villages in the Jawhar tehsil had already queued to begin what they had aptly named as first of its kind ‘RTI Satyagraha' against the alleged unlawful implementation of The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest...

-Frontline The Land Acquisition Bill runs into a roadblock as political parties fail to reach an agreement on the substantive features of the draft Bill or on the amendments proposed. The efforts of the United Progressive Alliance government to broker a consensus on the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2012, which has been pending for over a year, have not paid off not because...

-DNA Tribal minister shoots letter to 9 guvs seeking cancellation of leases. Union tribal affairs minister V Kishore Chandra Deo has asked governors of nine states to invoke their special powers to revoke lease agreements and MoUs signed between state governments and corporates to extract mineral wealth in tribal areas. Pointing out that power lobbies were disregarding land regulations, he castigated the Congress-ruled Andhra Pradesh government. The union minister, who is also...

-The Indian Express Nagpur: A Maharashtra forest department study, based on GPS and satellite imagery, shows that "ineligible forest areas are being claimed and granted for land plots (pattas) under the Forest Rights Act." The FRA gives traditional forest dwellers the right over lands they had encroached for farming, subject to a cutoff of December 31, 2005. The implementing authority is the tribal affairs department, a sore point with the forest...

-The Hindu The Cabinet Committee on Investment (CCI) seems to be helping to raze green speed-bumps - ruffling the feathers of environment and tribal activists in the process - with environment clearances having been issued for more than Rs. 45,000 crore worth of projects in its first two months of existence. In the next few months, the CCI expects to spur revisions in clearance provisions for high-rises, SEZs and roads, and form...