-Scroll.in How does the project qualify as ‘public purpose’ and does it violate legal safeguards for Santhal areas? Part 2 of a Scroll.in investigation on the Godda plant. In the villages of Motiya and Gangta in Jharkhand’s Godda district, tractors and SUVs race down a recently widened dirt road. Even in the clouds of dust they kick off, it is hard to miss the fence stretching across kilometres of farmland, with cows...

-The Hindu Ministry report names groups opposed to mining and sale of tribal land The Home Ministry has said in its annual report that at least two civil rights groups working for tribal people in Odisha and Jharkhand were allegedly acting as a front organisation for the Maoists and were using “displacement of local communities” as their main plank. The Niyamgiri Suraksha Samiti (NSS) in Odisha and the Visthapan Virodhi Jan Vikas Andolan...

-VillageSquare.in Recent amendments to laws that govern the use of land owned by tribals in Jharkhand has led to a rash of protests because local communities feel that they might lose their land and livelihoods to industrial development Last year in May, when the Jharkhand government announced to remove handcuffs from all the statues and pictures of Birsa Munda, the indigenous people of the state lauded the newly appointed first non-tribal chief...

-The Hindu On the tenth anniversary of the historic passage of the Forest Rights Act, tribal resistance to defend their rights is growing even as government after government tries to dilute its provisions On this day 10 years ago the historic Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act was passed in the Lok Sabha. Its conception and passage was the result of the decades of struggles and...

-ANI Greening the barren land in Jharkhand and West Bengal Deoghar: Standing amid the road in Kasuadi village in Jharkhand, Deevani Mahato looks intently towards the contrasting landscape stretching across on both sides of the road. Wet green fields of wheat, mustard and grams, separated by the bunds of mud, cover the land on one side. Barren tracts of red soil full of dry bushes and stones stretch on the other. "By next...