Carbon Copy A freshly passed amendment to the Forest Conservation Act has created a stir among ecologists, parliamentarians and stakeholders. With several contentious provisions, the amendment reveals an afforestation push where rights and justice take a backseat to commercial interests. This week, amidst a raucous monsoon session, the Indian Parliament saw the passage of several consequential pieces of legislation in quick succession. Among them was the contentious amendment to the Forest Conservation...

The recently concluded Parliament session saw the passage of the highly controversial “Forest Conservation (Amendment) Bill, 2023” amid wide protests and without much discussion. The bill is aimed to amend the erstwhile Forest Conservation Act, 1980. Among the changes suggested, the below preamble was inserted into the act, and the “Forest (Conservation) Act” is substituted by “Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyam” in the principal Act. While the Environment Ministry claims that...

-The Hindu It is our duty to ‘caution government’ when its policies have potential to affect the rights of tribal people, says Harsh Chouhan, Chairperson of the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes It is the duty of the commission to “caution the government” when its policies have the potential to affect the well-being and rights of tribal people, Harsh Chouhan, Chairperson of the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST), told The Hindu...

--Press release by Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN) dated September 21, 2022 Over One lakh People Already Evicted in 2022. Nearly 1 Million People Faced Evictions in India in the Last Five Years. In 2021, over 36,480 houses were demolished and 2,07,106 people were forcibly evicted across India by governments – at all levels, reveals a new report by Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN). The report also finds that in...

-Article-14.com In June 2022, India’s environment minister Bhupender Yadav claimed that the legal rights of millions of Indian Adivasis or tribals had not been diluted in new changes to procedures that govern how forests are given to industry. But government documents reveal that doing away with the Centre’s responsibility to verify tribal rights had been the environment ministry’s intent since 2019. New Delhi: On 28 June 2022, the union government amended India’s...