-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...

-The Hindu Raipur: For the first time since the formation of Chhattisgarh in 2000, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) will hold a "full commission" sitting in State capital Raipur. NHRC chairperson Justice K. G. Balakrishnan and its members, Justice B. C. Patel and retired diplomat Satyabrat Pal, will hold several sessions till Friday. According to sources in the NHRC, investigating officers and the special rapporteur of the commission had visited the State,...

-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 government does it purely on the strength of a certificate issued by the district administration Even as the recent affidavit submitted by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) before the Supreme Court in the Vedanta case has caused dismay among tribal communities and activists for the dilution of its stand on diverting forest lands of tribal communities, the Ministry has gone a step further and allowed diversion...

-The Telegraph Manju Cherva (26), a tribal woman of Binua village, West Singhbhum district, is a school dropout. If you ask Manju to spot her block - Manoharpur - on Jharkhand's map, she'll fumble. But she's among 21 women who are making sure that Binua's children can map their ambition and shine in life by getting to study after sunset. Binua is one of India's 18,000-odd villages that live without electricity in...