Order of the National Green Tribunal (Eastern Zone Bench, Kolkata) in the matter of Giri Gobardhan Forest Committee Vs State of Odisha & Others dated 15/05/2025. The Applicant Giri Gobardhan Forest Committee has filed the application alleging illegal felling of trees over an area of around 5 acres within the …
This UNDP study focuses on the situation of land rights and ownership in Orissa. Provides concrete suggestions to improve access of the poor to land and highlights the need to arrest processes that are promoting land alienation. Access to land is acutely important in rural India, where the incidence of …
Despite the overwhelming evidence of "immiserisation' due to displacement, numerous cases of resistance and the distortion of democratic processes, the neoliberal paradigm remains dominant in India.
The traditional forest dweller has had very few entitlements down centuries. Guardian of the forest, he has been regarded as encroacher by the State. All that is changing now as the Forest Rights Act of 2006 is being implemented across the country since January this year. Down To Earth tracks …
Nidhi Jamwal Six months past the fra implementation deadline, Maharashtra is struggling to understand the Act and its provisions. The central issue in the state revolves around the local body employed to initiate the implementation procedure. The state government is going by gram panchayats and group gram panchayats, and villagers …
The rural world of nineteenth-century Tamil Nadu was highly diversified in terms of land control and ownership. Academic efforts have largely focused on the various claims to
This paper summarises the key findings of a number of studies that were prepared for two international conferences devoted to comparing the rural development and agricultural reform experiences of China (the dragon) and India (the elephant) over the last several decades.
The main objective of this study is to assess the overall debt position of the farmers in Punjab and identify the factors affecting their indebtedness.
The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Programme in the Philippines has made substantial progress in dealing with land reform. Much more remains to be done and Filipino society is actively engaged in critically discussing the past and the future of CARP. There are lessons here for India where policymaking circles remain obsessed …
This paper by Centre for Development Studies examines empirically within sustainable development framework the dynamics of coverage in rural drinking water supply of 180 demand-driven schemes from Malappuram, predominantly a coastal district of Kerala State. This paper examines empirically within sustainable development framework the dynamics of coverage in rural drinking …
Amazon dam project frozen: A Brazilian judge has issued a restraining order on a controversial dam in the Amazon basin. In response to a suit, the court ruled that the government has illegally awarded technical and economic feasibility studies for Belo Monte Dam to civil construction companies even before conducting …
Until a month ago the Adani Group, the proponent of Mundra sez in Kutch district of Gujarat, had been on a roll, buying land at dirt-cheap rates, though some in the political circle and real-estate market smelled a scam in it. Then something unprecedented happened. The people of Zarapara village …
April 15. Zarapara village, Mundra taluka, Kutch. More than 3,000 men and women gathered to attend a gram sabha meeting called to discuss the transfer of the village grazing land for the Mundra sez. The atmosphere was charged as the taluka development officer (TDO) and the deputy district development officer …
Land alienation, poverty amongst scheduled tribes and dalits and lack of access to basic forest resources have contributed to the growth of naxalism, says the Planning Commission. Its report, Development challenges in extremist affected areas, indicts Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh. The report also critiques sezs and the complete failure of …
Land reforms in Kerala, far from being a remarkable success, have been a major failure. They were meant to redistribute land and not to improve productivity. It is time the state government considered ordering that redistributed land should be returned if the beneficiaries do not cultivate it and also reversing …
Little did I know that the seven of us would be branded "Maoists' when we set off for a protest rally against posco in Orissa on April 1. We had reached Bhubaneswar a day earlier and booked a taxi to Dhinkia, a hamlet 10 km off Paradip port. A local …
A principal aim of this study is to get a better sense of what the World Bank (WB) needs to know in order to engage Indigenous Peoples (IPs) more effectively in biodiversity conservation projects and programs. It is in this sense that the reporting is geared to Bank Task Team …
The National Sample Survey Organization notes that in 2003, marginal and small farmers constituted 90.4 per cent of all farmers in India, but held only 43.4 per cent of land. The study was undertaken in Anand district of central Gujarat during September 2007.
Payments for environmental services (PES) have attracted increasing interest as a mechanism to translate external, non-market values of the environment into real financial incentives for local actors to provide environmental services (ES).
