-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...

-The Telegraph The ambit of the corpus created to fight public health emergencies widened but its veil stays intact The veil on the PM Cares Fund — the corpus created to battle the Covid-19 crisis without the tiresome need for any audit scrutiny — remained firmly in place even as its newly-appointed trustees decided on Wednesday to widen the scope of its operations. Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired a virtual meeting of the...

-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...

-The Hindu * What are the Forest Conservation Rules and how will it affect forest dwellers and tribals? What is the government’s position on the updated rules? The story so far: The Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) sparred earlier this week on the latest version of the Forest Conservation Rules. Congress spokesperson, Jairam Ramesh, alleged that the latest version of the rules, updated last month, allowed forest land to be...

-NDTV.com The State of Adivasi Livelihoods Report 2021, released by a Delhi-based non-profit, revealed that tribal villages are deprived of public services that are available to non-Adivasi villages in the same region. Details here. The reach of 'development' amenities and facilities such as all-weather roads, telephones, educational institutions, health infrastructure, etc. are poorer in Adivasi villages as compared to the non-Adivasi villages of the same geography, noted the State of Adivasi Livelihoods...