Order of the Supreme Court in the matter of Sugra Adiwasi & Others Vs Pathranand & Others dated 29/04/2025. The bench of Justice Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha and Justice Joymalya Bagchi directed the state of Madhya Pradesh as well as the central government through the the Ministries of Tribal Affairs and …
AUSTRALIAN Prime Minister Paul Keating dismissed fears that the concept of giving aborigines title to native land could put the country's agriculture and mining industries at risk. Keating was responding to a leading conservative politician's warning that the high court ruling, which handed ownership of government land to aborigines, would …
AUTHORITIES at Dudhwa National Park are wallowing in smugness at the ease with which they evicted tribals who occupied forest land near the park. Boasts Lakhimpur-Kheri superintendent O P Singh, "Without even raising a baton, we deported the encroachers to Bichhia." Sixty-two tribals were arrested. Although the deportation exercise went …
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 …
SLASH-and-burn cultivation immediately conjures images of destruction. One imagines vast areas of smouldering forest land dotted with burnt out tree stumps. But this method of farming, also known as swidden cultivation, is actually a sustainable form of forest agriculture. The technique of slash-and-burn cultivation has been practised by generations of …
BORNEO'S dense, virgin rainforests are interspersed with large, naked patches where trees have been plucked out by loggers. Meandering rivers such as the Baram that run through the forests have turned red with silt washed down from the now-barren hillsides. The government and the timber companies, however, blame tribal shifting …
WHEN THE UN Sub-Commission on Human Rights meets in Geneva in August, we may see another forward step by the growing movement for international acceptance for the concept of environmental rights. The meeting will review a three-year study on the links between human rights and the environment by the sub-commission's …
MOST OF the 300 million indigenous people in the world live in highly vulnerable ecosystems and have often been deprived of their human rights and fundamental freedom, resulting in dispossession of their land and resources. Because they are such a high risk group, they are also the most in need …
Brazil: All persons are entitled to an ecologically balanced environment. China: The state is to protect and improve the living environment and the ecological environment, and prevent and combat pollution and other hazards. Guyana: In the interests of the present and future generations, the state is to take all appropriate …
PEOPLE in Orissa's famine-hit regions are desperately selling their children -- not for the money but to ensure two square meals a day for them. So far, 16 cases of children being sold have been exposed in the local media, but the state government is yet to admit even one. …
BESET by famine and drought, large sections of Orissa and Bihar are beginning to mirror the stark images of hunger in Somalia and Sudan. In Orissa, more than 10 million people -- the majority of whom are tribals -- are reeling under a famine. In tribal-dominated south Bihar, too, more …
Miners have once again encroached upon the land allotted to the Yanomami, South America's largest surviving tribe of forest Indians. The miners have been ordered on three previous occasions to get out of the Yanomami reservation, even though Brazilian president Fernando Collor de Mellor's orders to evacuate miners from the …
In a chilling reminder of his prowess as an outlaw, sandalwood smuggler and poacher Veerappan and his gang exploded an electronic landmine, which destroyed a van carrying members of a task force set up specially to nab him. Twenty-two policemen died in the April 9 explosion at, which occurred less …
A pilot project to install energy-efficient, solar lanterns as an employment generation scheme in the northeastern states is to be implemented soon by the Department of Non-conventional Energy Sources (DNES), the Department of Science and Technology and the North-eastern Council. If the programme succeeds, installation will be expanded to a …
AS WOMEN in Rajasthan insist on being treated by only another woman, Jagaran is making an effort to recruit women as gunis. One much sought after woman herbalist is 42-year-old Laxmi Bai of Gamana Sagar village in Udaipur district. She is the mother of six, and the wife of a …
JAGARAN is a non-government organisation working on reviving the dying art of herbal healing in an impoverished tribal belt in Udaipur district. But its efforts have provoked a backlash among local allopaths and Karu Ram, a guni as herbalists are called, explains why: "Because we provide effective and free treatment …
WHEN ALL the good-sized trees had vanished from the forest around Khudamunda hamlet in Sambalpur district, Orissa, a villager went into a reserve forest nearby in search of poles for his hut. He was caught and beaten by a forest guard, who then took a hefty sum and a goat …
VILLAGERS in Lapanga, Sambalpur district, assert they initiated forest protection as long ago as 1936, making Lapanga one of the first villages to do so. The villagers protect about 250 ha of forest, of which 75 ha. are ryoti (private) land, donated for use as a community-run forest. The protection …
THE BRAZILIAN government swung into action recently to evict thousands of gold-panners from a 94,000- sq-kin Yanomami reserve near the Venezuelan border to save the 9,000 members of South America's largest Indian tribe from an outbreak of malaria. Thousands of panners who left the reserve to celebrate Carnival elsewhere are …
ENVIRONMENTAL issues are making their mark on Indian television. Doordarshan features the science and environment programme Turning Point each week in a prime-time slot, hitherto reserved for Hindi serials. News programmes such as The World This Week and Parakh also frequently spotlight coverage of environmental conflicts. A recent edition of …
IN MARCH 1991, Aeta tribals living in Pinatubo region felt a rumbling in the long-dormant volcano. Birds and animals also exhibited showed signs of agitation. Here is an account of what followed: April 2: A hydrothermal explosion shakes the area, forcing columns of steam upto 800 m high from vents …
