Affidavit on behalf of Union Territory of Puducherry in the matter of a news item titled "India lost 2.33 million hectares of tree cover since 2000 Global Forest Watch" which appeared in the Indian Express, April 13, 2024. The report dated April 25, 2025 said that there is no loss …
THEY can't do what th.ey want if the people of the forests retain their home rights. So, India's forest bureaucracy and t~ political mandarins insist that the 5,OOO-odd Van Gujjar's and their12,300 buffaloes must leave the Rajaji National Park ( RNP ) .The pristineness of the Park must be maintained, …
THEY invaded the panchayat offices in several parts of Kerala... teeming crowds of noisy school students demanding, of all things, panchayat maps! This sudden interest in their respective local geographies was sparked off by the Vigyanotsavam - meaning a 'festival of sciences' - conducted by the Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad …
The forest protection initiatives of villagers in Bihar and Orissa, while arising out of crises, are marked by pragmatism. The people have realised that protection is possible only once their often-conflicting needs have been met first, which is why villagers' committees closely regulate the use of forest resources. Unfortunately, for …
IN THE summer of 1970, Nunaram Mardi of Bhitardhari village in Bihar"s East Singhbhum district espied a lone female monkey on a treeless rockface, desperately trying to shield her baby from the harsh sun with her body. "She was searching for shade, but could not find any," Mardi recounts. "On …
A PROPOSED revision of the Indian Forest Act of 1927, by the ministry of environownt and forests (MEF), has become the focus of a controversy. Non-governowntal organisations say the MEF'S propmed kgislation - to be called the nservation of Forests and Natural ystems Act - does not do much for …
A WELL-KNOWN quasi-ecumenical argument against the existence of God is the existence of the mosquito: apart from being frustratingly acrobatic and musically demented, the little bugger serves no evident purpose at all in the Almighty's scheme of things. Except one which the Lord's herd can do without: over the millennia, …
THE village of Behrampur Gouditikra in Orissa's Bargarh district has an uncommon distinction: all the 109 households have running water. This is the latest addition to its civic amenities, which include latrines in every house, electricity, a school and a motorable road to the highway. All this has been achieved …
"THE Range-wallahs want to kill us and our cattle to plant trees for the townspeople. Let the people in the towns plant trees on their own land," rages Punia Bhima, a wizened Bhilala tribal of Pujara Ki Chowki village in the Jhabua district of Madhya Pradesh. Bhima is a veteran …
THROUGH the '80s, Vadodara was known as much for being one of India's fastest-industrialising cities as for its mountainous garbage problem. But the Baroda Citizen's Council (BCC), a local voluntary body, is taking care of the latter. The BCC programme to involve residential colonies in cleaning up their own household …
ABOUT 25,000 people formed a 10 km hand-linked human chain in the Jeerakappara forest in Kerala recently and vowed to save trees. The human barricade, called the Manushya Prathirodha Nira, was a part of an ongoing struggle to protect resources that are integral to their lives. It was organised by …
DEOLI had seen nothing like it. On April 25, over 500 villagers took out a rally through this small township in the Tonk district of Rajasthan, under the banner of the Samanvay Samiti, Bisalpur Bandh Doob Kshetra. They were protesting against the inadequacy of rehabilitation measures for the Bisalpur Drinking …
IN THE early 1980s, the people of Sukhomajri village in Shivalik range of the Himalaya in Haryana's Ambala district earned nation-wide acclaim for the way in which they had utilised their forests and water to their benefit. But even they would never have imagined that the 400 ha forest of …
FIVE YEARS ago, the social forestry department in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra cleared several trees from a forest near Nandivse village to plant acacia trees. It did not know that the 4-ha patch was a sacred grove surrounding the temple of a powerful local deity, Kal Bhairon. The villagers, too, …
MORE THAN 6,000 ha of usar (saline) infertile land in 16 districts of Uttar Pradesh have been regenerated in the last decade by the Sarvodaya Ashram, a non-governmental organisation, through community participation. Sarvodaya workers played only an advisory role and all the work was left to be done by the …
The United Nations Development Programme's third and latest report acclaims participation as the cornerstone of human development. This springs from its recognition that "people's participation is becoming the central issue of our time." The emphasis is on people and the "impatient urge that they have to participate in the events …
GAYS AND lesbians in their thousands demonstrated in Washington recently, demanding an end to discrimination and escalation of the war against AIDS, and dramatised their protest by lying on the street for five minutes. Not many of the demonstrators, whose numbers greatly exceeded the Vietnam war protest of 1969 and …
FOLLOWING an extended drought and widespread deforestation, Jambhoji, the son of a village headman in Rajasthan, had a vision that the hard times were a result of the conflict with nature. In 1485, Jambhoji, who was now known as Swami Jambeshwar Maharaj and the founder of the Bishnoi sect, laid …
The people of Bhansoj, 50 km from the district headquarters town of Raipur in Madhya Pradesh, are up in arms against liquor, and achieving results. Until last year, Bhansoj was notorious for severe alcoholism, says S N Biswas, who owns the local dispensary. Recalls Biswas, "The whole atmosphere was spoiled. …
COMMUNITY participation can work wonders when it comes to tackling diseases too recalcitrant to be curbed effectively by medical science alone. A fine example of this can be found in the Shertallai region in central Kerala, where the Pondicherry-based Vector Control Research Centre (VCRC) successfully involved the people in an …
