The Act grants legal recognition to the rights of traditional forest dwelling communities

The Additional Collector’s headquarter here was abuzz even before its gates opened on Monday morning. Around 100 tribals from various villages in the Jawhar tehsil had already queued to begin what they had aptly named as first of its kind ‘RTI Satyagraha’ against the alleged unlawful implementation of The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006.

It manipulates data and facts to make a case against Act

Forest rights campaigners have slammed the satellite image-based study on the implementation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA) in Maharashtra as “deeply faulty and obviously biased,” arguing that it manipulates data and facts to make a case against the Act. Countering the report which a private company prepared at the behest of the State Forest Department, a critique by Madhu Sarin and others of the Campaign for Survival and Dignity says the study does not highlight its own data that only two per cent of claims it investigated could actually be “false” even by its incorrect interpretation.

A Maharashtra forest department study, based on GPS and satellite imagery, shows that "ineligible forest areas are being claimed and granted for land plots (pattas) under the Forest Rights Act." Th

The government does it purely on the strength of a certificate issued by the district administration

Even as the recent affidavit submitted by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) before the Supreme Court in the Vedanta case has caused dismay among tribal communities and activists for the dilution of its stand on diverting forest lands of tribal communities, the Ministry has gone a step further and allowed diversion of forest land in Himachal Pradesh purely on the strength of a certificate issued by the district administration.

The Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) of the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) is reconsidering its clearance for the controversial Kalu Dam in Thane district.

Sloppy implementation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA) has resulted in large tracts of forests being cut down and claimed as cultivated land in Maharashtra, according to a study.

Jamguda (Kalahandi): Transit permit to villagers to procure and sell forest resources will create a revolution in the country as it is an important tool to empower tribal communities, stressed Unio

Tribal development must for curbing Naxal growth, says Jairam Ramesh

For the residents of this tiny non-descript village in Odisha’s Kalahandi-Bolangir-Koraput region, it was a rare celebratory occasion on Sunday when they got back the rights that had been snatched away by the British rulers nearly a century ago. The official transit passbook for cultivation and harvest of bamboo was handed over to the Jamguda Gram Sabha by Orissa forest officials. Union Rural Development and Tribal Affairs Ministers Jairam Ramesh and Kishore Chandra Deo and Odisha Revenue minister Surjya Narayan Patra attended a Tribal Rights festival organised by the Gram Sabha to mark the event.