Today, people are protesting against illegal and unjust land grabbing across the country, and it is clear for all to see that the process of land acquisition is unjust and driven by private interests. At this time, the UPA government is introducing a Bill that will supposedly address these issues. The government claims that the main problem is ensuring ‘fair’ compensation for land losers, though, ironically, its Bill will not even achieve this. However, the problem is far deeper, and affects far more people than landowners alone. (Joint Statement)

This article highlights the changes that have taken place in the political economy of Ranikhera village between 1953 and 2008. Urbanisation is the key factor in transforming the village life. Agriculture has lost its traditional importance as a major source of livelihood. The social relations of production between the landowning Jajmans and landless servicing castes have been affected by opening up of new employment opportunities in the metropolitan city of Delhi. Many Dalits have ‘emancipated’ themselves from their earlier dependence on their Jajmans.

Industrial relocation in Delhi in the mid-1990s and early 2000 was supposed to ensure a pollution-free environment in the capital city. The apex court’s concern for quality of life in Delhi is commendable. However, disproportionate responsibility is placed on those who sell their labour power in order to secure a life of dignity. This article, based on a field study, explores that industrial relocation has badly affected the workers not only economically, but also socially and culturally.

This article looks into the instances of growing waterlogging, which is a negative externality of the developmental process (canal irrigation) that has affected the marginalised sections to a greater extent, who mostly depend on land for livelihood and self-sustenance. Land-use pattern has undergone a tremendous transformation due to irrigation development in terms of increase in fallow and culturable waste lands.

The growth of militant left radicalism, known as the Naxalite movement in official documents and civil society discussions, has acquired considerable prominence in the public policy discourse, media coverage and interaction with social scientists. The subject has also been deliberated upon in seminars across the country. The Government policy to deal with it has also polarised thinking on how it should be understood and characterised and what would be the most appropriate approach to neutralise its influence.

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), 2005 which is a rights-based flagship scheme of the Government of India with effect from 2 February, 2006, guarantees at least 100 days of wage employment in a given financial year to every rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work. The MGNREGA is also intended to create durable community assets which would enhance productivity along with an increase in demand for labour. The Act mandates 33 per cent participation of women.

The Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) is a protracted struggle of more than three decades against large dams. While the movement has been a witness to various highs and lows, some key lessons nevertheless can be deducted by analysing its overall successes and failures. Arguments presented in this article are based on the assumption that ‘domestic mobilisation is one of the main strategies in shaping political will amongst state actors’.

The tribal and ecological history of India has been the history of forced transformation of the natural commons into private property engineered under both the colonial and post colonial state policy. In the following period of structural adjustment programme during and after the 1990s the state has opened the public domain for privatisation by the trans–national corporations and Indian small and large companies. Natural commons is being treated as capital.

Beacuse of the pressure of development, displacement of people from project sites has become an ubiquitous phenomenon. Relatively high rate of growth of the Indian economy has added new dimensions and diversity to project-related displacement. Development projects call for acquisition of land which, undertaken on a large scale and without consultation with the owners of land, have led to agitation and public protests. A proper resettlement policy is a key to dealing with this problem.

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 rather decide their ‘economics’, and not the other way round that may be true for modern, techno-centric civilizations. Most mainstream discourses of history have, however, tried to locate the crisis in the ‘absence of state interventions’.