-Scroll.in A one-man judicial commission has recommended that the company pay the full amount as penalty for its violations in a forest that is home to elephants. In July 2020, the government of Assam ordered an inquiry into allegations of illegal mining in the state’s Digboi forest division. The division, an administrative category, falls within the larger Dehing Patkai Elephant Reserve, one of India’s largest rainforests. In December 2021, the report of the...

-The Telegraph Over 1,703 hectares of land of 84 revenue villages in Shikaripara and Kathitund blocks of Dumka district were allotted to the Eastern Coalfields Limited Jamshedpur: Over 200 tribals in Dumka district of Jharkhand have taken a pledge not to give up an inch of their “ancestral” land for coal mining. Over 1,703 hectares of land of 84 revenue villages in Shikaripara and Kathitund blocks of Dumka district were allotted to the...

-Newsclick.in The NBWL has recently granted clearance to North Eastern Coalfields, a subsidiary of Coal India Limited, for open cast mining over an area of 98.59 hectares in the Saleki area of the rainforests. New Delhi: The chorus for banning all mining activities within the rainforests of Assam has been rising after the National Board of Wild Life (NBWL) recently granted clearance to coal mining in the region, allegedly overlooking ecological concerns. Several...

-The Hindu People’s objections, from Chhattisgarh to Odisha, against large development projects have brought out the real power of the Forest Rights Act of 2006. Democracy is alive and kicking in India. No, I am not referring to the Assembly elections. It is unfortunate that the term democracy has been reduced to the drama of periodic elections and the subsequent reliance of the electorate on politicians and bureaucrats. When these powerful few...

-Economic and Political Weekly   Much work remains to be done if the new Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act has to mark a meaningful shift for India's adivasi communities. Chitrangada Choudhury (chitrangada@csds.in) Chitrangada Choudhury (chitrangada@csds.in) is a multimedia journalist and researcher, and currently with the Publics and Policies program at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi. Among the worst excesses committed in India's six decade-old democracy, the forcible displacment...