A legislation that has deterred people from planting trees In May this year, this magazine ran a story about a person in Orissa who was hard put to cut down trees in his patch of land. He faced bureaucratic hurdles galore. There are many like him in the country. A lot of their problems can be blamed on tree preservation acts in various states of the country. The origins of these

Preservation laws have made trees a problem for people STATE monopolies are not exclusive to modern times. Mining was the preserve of the state in ancient and medieval times. The Mughal state exercised an iron hand over opium production and trade. Once the Mughal empire declined, satraps asserted their independence by establishing monopolies over various commodities including tobacco and