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 …
The city of Mysore in Karnataka has become the scene for an interesting battle royal. In contention is the People's park in the heart of the city, fought over by the Mysore Grahakara Parishat (MGP), a local organisation initiated by a few residents of Mysore, and the municipal corporation. The …
as the world debates the issue of indigenous people's rights, aborigines in Australia have taken recourse to law to press for their land rights. The Canberra High Court recently passed an order supporting aboriginal groups who have staked claim to tribal lands leased by state governments to cattle and sheep …
Tribal representatives from different parts of the country staged a dharna (sit in demonstration), in New Delhi on September 2, 1996, demanding the implementation of the Bhuria Committee's recommendations. The Bhuria Committee submitted its report in January, 1995, and recommended that the tribal community control its natural resources like forests, …
Land ownership rights continue to torment the many Indian tribes living in this country. Estranged from their own land and forced to adopt alien customs, distressed Brazilian Indians have turned to committing suicide. Over the last 10 years, some 200 Kaiowa Indians, a sub-group of Guarani Indians, have killed themselves …
Instead of the usual scenes of gaiety to celebrate the 'Discovery of Brazil' on April 22, Brazilian Indians undertook protest demonstrations to display their anger against an administration which has systematically created more hardships for them. Even as President Fernando Henrique Cardoso along with local leaders of the Pataxo area …
IN a world primarily by the dynamics of the global Market,where rules are made and broken at the whims of Corporate gaint, a parallel force is slowly but steadily gaining Ground. It is the force of the people - of the indigenous commmunities and minority groups fighting to assert their …
FOR Thapar-Dupont Limited (TDi I has been opposition all the wav fn Goa to Gummidipoondi - 45 lcm fr Madras. Even before the decision relocate the Rs 600 crore Nylon plant was finalised, some Tamil Na NGos had collected details about plant. Immediately after the m between the Tamil Nadu …
Film director Sahjo Singh's latest Sons Mati, has been selected for Panorama '95. The film is based on the story of Sona Bel of west Rajasthan, who is fight-ing to get back her ancetral land. Sona Bal is being deprived of her rights due to the improper chakb&ndi; (consolidation of …
The Landless Settlers Problem Commission in Kathmandu has attracted the ire of the locals of Nijgadh, Bara, who claim that they have been wrongly treated as landless settlers although they were settled in the area by the government between 1968 and 1970. During this period, the government had distributed land …
ENVIRONMENTAL activists and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have been shouting themselves hoarse for a more stringent conservation of the Delhi Ridge. Ironically, the Delhi Administration's favourable response to the issue has sparked off widespread resentment among villages in a section of the so-called lung of Delhi. Since the '90s, the inhabitants …
ON JULY 23, Delhi's development minister Sahib Singh Verma kicked off the state government's afforestation drive from Jaunapur village in Mehrauli block. However, indignant at being forced out of the area and suddenly losing their traditional rights over the land, the villagers tried to block the minister's path, leading to …
Tribals in Chhotanagpur, living in questionable safety around the 188 sq km Netarhat Firing Range, are preparing to launch a protest movement against the proposed acquisition of their land by the army's 23 Infantry Division. The acquisition would displace about 100,000 inhabitants and periodically uproot another 150,000 during actual test …
THE AUSTRALIAN parliament has passed legislation that gives aborigines the right to make claims on government-held territory if they can prove their unbroken connection to the land. Under the law, passed in December, aborigines are obliged to respect mining, ranching and other leases on any property they win claim to. …
A PROPOSED Australian law that allows aborigines to claim land has been criticised by the country's business community, which fears it could curb mining. The proposed native land-title legislation arose from a 1992 high court ruling that recognised the native title to land under the country's common law. The ruling, …
IN THE UN Year of Indigenous Peoples, Brazilian Indians have received a setback with the dismissal of Sydney Possuelo, head of Brazil's Indian Affairs Bureau, who was actively involved in protecting and demarcating Indian land. Under the constitution, all Indian lands must be demarcated by October 1993, but so far …
A Nigerian judicial commission of inquiry has uncovered a gruesome incident in which the police massacred 80 unarmed villagers demonstrating for compensation in lieu of their land taken over by Shell International. The Guardian alleges that not only did Nigerian authorities cover up the killings, they also suppressed the commission …
Using data from villages in three districts of Western Rajasthan, this paper describes the decline in area and deterioration in quality of common property resources over three decades. The decline of common property resources is associated with institutional changes in the villages. The introduction of land reforms in the early …
