What are the political drivers for land rights of forest-dependent communities?
Prakash Kashwan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science, University of Connecticut. His research and scholarship focuses …
The power game
Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have become increasingly influential in the past 50 years. Awareness of human rights and social and …
DIRTY SEX
Every 10 years, the census of India comes out with a damning statistic: the country's abysmal female-male ratio. As per the 2001 census, there …
‘Forest department is the encroacher’
When V Kishore Chandra Deo became the Union Minister for Panchayati Raj and Tribal Affairs three months ago, both the ministries were in inertia.…
Wealth of forests withheld
Forest departments across the country owe millions of rupees to communities. For 20 years communities toiled under the Joint Forest Management …
How government is subverting Forest Rights Act
Does this official data betray a conspiracy? Only 1.6 per cent of the 2.9 million claims approved under the Forest Rights Act recognise community …
Empowered panchayats make for true liberalisation
A myth actively perpetuated by traditional politicians and a supportive bureauracy is that panchayat bodies are India's lowest ranked …
Rights without benefits
Over 1.3 million tribals and forest dwellers have got rights over the land they had been using for years under the Forest Rights Act. This can, …
Labour vs pollution
Ever since the Supreme Court (sc) ordered closure/relocation of polluting units in Delhi, which subsequently left nearly 50,000 people jobless,…
"Polluters are today's environmentalists"
Crusader for the rights of over eight million Indian fisherfolk, Thomas Kochery , 57, made news headlines when he rejected the US $150,000 …
Bamboo rising
Five years after it was implemented, the Forest Rights Act finally takes root. Communities across the country rush to claim rights over forests …
‘EIAs of mining projects have become a farce’
Christopher Albin-Lackey, senior researcher with New York-based non-profit Human Rights Watch (HRW), has documented the large-scale environmental …
What's the fuss about Bt brinjal?
Mohammad Rafiqul Islam Mondal, director-general of Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI), is among the handful of people who have …
'Building and retaining capacity is the toughest challenge'
Balakrishna Pisupati is in the hot seat as chairperson of the National Biodiversity Authority (NBA), where he has to deal with regulatory and …
Investment terror
Since the 1990s developing nations have been on a treaty spree, signing a vast number of bilateral and regional investment treaties to attract …
'Most countries don’t want to recognise indigenous people as people'
Mohammed Taghi Farvar, former director of Avicenna University in Iran, is a well-known ecologist and social scientist. At present, he is the …
In search of the missing
In the undivided Koraput district of Orissa, there exist 190 villages that have slowly been pushed off the map of India. Hurled by fast-track …
Polavaram fraud
The Polavaram dam on the Godavari could displace 400,000 people and submerge nearly 4,000 hectares of forestland. Most of the people threatened …
On privatising water
What about privatising water? Should India move to do it? What tips the scales in its favour, and what doesn't? In 2003, two editorials in Down …
A treaty too many
India is learning that there is a heavy price to be paid for the large number of bilateral investment treaties, or BITs, it has signed in the …
Future compromised
The Earth Summit was a historical opportunity to set the world on the correct development trajectory. Negotiators from 191 countries came …
The hunt for benefits
India is hailed as a pioneer in implementing the third objective of the Convention on Biological Diversity—fair and equitable sharing of …
Secretive tribunals, hidden damages
Canadian academic Gus Van Harten is well known for his efforts to reform the global investment treaty regime through his research papers, …