Order of the Supreme Court of India in the matter of Romila Thapar & Others Vs Union of India & Others dated 29/08/2018 regarding arrest of activists for their alleged Maoist links. Apex Court directs that the activists be kept under house arrest at their own homes. The next date …
In April this year, Gadchiroli district in Maharashtra made history. One of its villages became the country’s first to win the right to sell and harvest bamboo. Environment minister Jairam Ramesh handed over transit pass books to residents of Mendha Lekha village, allowing them to exercise community forest rights over …
State-run iron ore miner NMDC Ltd has finalised a Rs 3,000-crore slurry pipeline project for evacuating ore from its Bailadila mines in Chhattisgarh to Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh. Rana Som“I have just finalised the complete structure of laying the pipeline for evacuation of material from our Bailadila mines to Jagdalpur …
In a state such as Odisha in which Dalit and tribal groups comprise about 40 per cent of the total population, the issue of ‘access’ to land and resources has apparently been central to all conflicts. For traditional communities, ‘access’ is directly linked to civilizational paradigms and cultural ethos, which …
POVERTY is becoming hereditary in India, at least for a sizeable population. That is the conclusion derived from a three-decade tracking of poor households in rural India. A survey by the Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC), an international association of researchers and academicians, claims that those who are chronically poor …
Can you love tigers but hate forests? This is the question that troubled me as I visited the middle of India last fortnight. I was in Nagpur, where local politicians, conservationists and officials were discussing what needed to be done in this chronically poor and backward region endowed with forests …
Realising that the Integrated Action Plan (IAP) needs a boost to bridge the development deficit in Naxalite-infested districts of the country, the government has decided to formulate a package for all tribal-dominated areas spanning across seven states. As a result, the Planning Commission has finalised the contours of a Central …
WITHIN six months of its implementation, the Integrated Action Plan (IAP), intended to boost development in Naxalite-affected regions, is heading for a change. At present, the plan is being directed by district-level committees with no public participation. The Planning Commission wants to alter this arrangement by imposing conditions on release …
Planning Commission member Syeda Hameed today said it had been her decision to include human rights activist Binayak Sen in the steering committee for health for the 12th Plan. Hameed heads the committee.
In response to requests received from various state governments, the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Planning Commission, the MoE&F has decided to permit state governments to clear projects of upto 50 hectares of forest land for critical public utility infrastructure projects in 60 left-wing extremist affected districts without reference …
Making further concessions for creating public infrastructure in Naxalite areas, the government on Thursday ordered that projects like building of roads, schools or hospitals on forest land would not require clearance under the Forest Conservation Act, 1980 as long as the total forest land to be diverted is not more …
BHUBANESWAR: Orissa's literacy rate might have grown exponentially in the last decade to touch 73.45 per cent, almost on par with the National average of 74.04, but the Naxal hotbeds of the State continue to wallow in illiteracy. Literacy rate in the Maoist-infested districts of Malkangiri, Koraput and Nabarangpur still …
Chhattisgarh’s tribal population is beginning to get a taste of free press. They have a news service that informs them about events that concern them but rarely find mention in the mainstream media because of the state’s Special Public Security Act of 2005. The law operates as a gag order …
The Orissa government today conceded eight of the 14 demands made by Maoists to release Malkangiri district Collector Vineel Krishna and junior engineer Pabitra Majhi, whom they have held hostage since February 17. Government representatives held discussions with three interlocutors designated by the Maoists, but there were indications that a …
BHUBANESWAR: As several bail petitions were filed in different courts of Orissa on Monday for the release of suspected Maoists in the wake of the demands made by the Maoists for release of abducted Malkangiri Collector R. Vineel Krishna and Junior Engineer Pabitra Majhi, the State government continued negotiations with …
“It’s a question of freedom. Bread and freedom both are important and people must go back to their homes,” said a Supreme Court bench on January 17. It was hearing a petition seeking an independent committee to rehabilitate 40,000 tribals in Chhattisgarh, caught in the crossfire between Maoists and Salwa …
Raipur: Less than a few hundred metres from the landmark Chitrakote waterfall, a group of Maoists blew up an under construction police chowki on Monday. No one was injured.
THE Planning Commission will formulate an action plan for central Indian tribal areas in the 12th Five-Year Plan that begins next year. The Plan panel had abandoned a similar programme for Naxal districts following differences with the Home Ministry. The new plan would include the Red Corridor where Naxal activity …
