-Down to Earth In 41% of the cases, communities allege that authorities or project proponents did not follow proper procedures for the takeover of land Disputes concerning commons land accounted for 75.94 per cent of all the existing and resolved land-related conflicts, according to a new report. The report titled Land Locked: Investments and Lives in Land Conflicts, released by Land Conflict Watch (LCW), a Delhi-based research agency, arrived at this conclusion after...

-Newsclick.in The Van Gujjars are among a few surviving transhumant pastoral communities worldwide. They are a rarity in that they are one of the few Muslim Tribals who have survived as nomads to the present day. Eighty-six Families from Silan, a Van Gujjar settlement in Shivpuri Range, Tehri Garhwal, have filed their claims under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 and further submitted them...

-Down to Earth Ministry believes that the Chhattisgarh government cannot transfer these lands for any purpose without the prior permission of the Government of India A news report published in the Indian Express daily August 25, 2022 spurred a debate on the definition of ‘forest land’, its contentious history and many of the associated facts related to such lands. Ignored completely by the colonial administration and largely unresolved even after independence, many of...

-Newsclick.in In the lack of specific guidelines and a central monitoring mechanism, the process to review forest rights claims has varied across states. With the Modi government abdicating its responsibility of playing a coordinating role in reviewing settlements of claims on forest land, large number of rejections, in many instances above 50%, are being reported from various states. The Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA) is yet to set any specific guidelines...

-Countercurrents.org In the death of Fr Stan Swamy on July 5, 2021, who was an “under trial” detainee languishing in the custody of the authorities, India has lost a courageous campaigner for adivasi rights. The manner in which the 84-year old Jesuit priest was forced to die has shaken the conscience of the nation. What hurts the feelings of any one with a true sense of justice is that the authorities...