Eviction threat "looms large" over Odisha tribals' 1.45 lakh forest land rights claims

A workshop organized jointly by the Mayurbhanj Adivasi Bikash Manch (MABM) and the Mayurbhaj Jala, Jungle, Jamin and Jana Adhikar Manch (MJJJJAM) on the implementation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA) and the Panchati Raj Extension to Scheduled Area (PESA) Act has been told that a total of 1,45,750 individual forest rights (IFR) claims out of 6,17,935 filed at the gram sabha level in Odisha have been rejected and are under "serious threat" after the February 13 Supreme Court (SC) eviction order.
Speaking at the seminar, Dr Manohar Chauhan of the civil rights organization, Campaign for Survival and Dignity, said, “As per the nodal Scheduled Caste-Scheduled Tribe (STSC) Development Department, Government of Odisha by March 31, 2019 in total 6,17,935 (5,86,245 of STs and 31,690 of other traditional forest dwellers or OTFDs) IFR claims have been filed in the state at the gram sabha level. and 4,30,212 IFR titles ( 4,30,139 561 to STs and only 73 to OTFDs) have been issued over 2,60,028,752 hectares (ha) of forest land."
He added, "Likewise, by March 31, 2019, 13,826 community forest rights (CFR) claims have been filed at the gram sabha level and 6,564 CFR titles have been issued over 95,185 ha of forest land. It is also reported that in total 1,45,750 IFR claims (1,18,316 of STs and 27434 of OTFDs) have been rejected in the state, which are under serious threat after February 13 Supreme Court (SC) eviction order”.
Participated by 60 representatives from several Odisha district, Tulasi Munda, a padma shree awardee, who inaugurated, the seminar said that there is a need to bring about awareness on FRA and PESA in all the villages. She called upon all the gram sabhas to take over common property resources under their control and to resolve all conflicts and issues in the village itself so that no one would go to the jail.
Chauhan said, “While the Government of Odisha claiming to be No 1 in issuing highest number of IFR titles in the country, in most of the cases IFR titles have been issued without demarcation and are full of errors. Many IFR claims have been missed at the Sub-Divisional Level Committee (SDLC) level and are not reported, SDLC and District Level Committee (DLC) have bypassed the rights authority of the gram sabha and IFR claims of OTFDs have been ignored, recognition of community forests rights have been badly affected by the interference of the Forest Department."
Ramgalal Jamuda, former chairperson of the Odisha State Food Commission, raised concern over the February 13 Supreme Court eviction order, saying, IFR claims have been rejected across the country, adding, both the Central government and States governments to should strongly defend the FRA in the Supreme Court.
Sharing his field visit experience on FRA as chairman of the Food Commission, he said , “There are many discrepancies in the FRA data being produced by FRA DLCs and the State Level Monitoring Committee (SLMC), and there is an urgent need to demarcate all the forest land issued under FRA followed by Records of Rights (ROR) correction and extension of developmental programmes to the IFR title holders.”
Tushar Dash, member, Community Forest Rights Learning and Advocacy (CFRLA), shared on the process of enactment of the FRA in 2006, different rights recognized under the Act and on the forest rights recognition process. He also pointed out on the various threats to FRA under the BJP-led government at the Centre, especially from the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority, the Indian Forest Policy, 2018, and the proposed amendments in Indian Forest Act, 2019, which he said are contradictory to and directly violate the FRA, 2006.

Comments

Ahmedabad's civic chaos: Drainage woes, waterlogging, and the illusion of Olympic dreams

In response to my blog on overflowing gutter lines at several spots in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur, a heavily populated area, a close acquaintance informed me that it's not just the middle-class housing societies that are affected by the nuisance. Preeti Das, who lives in a posh locality in what is fashionably called the SoBo area, tells me, "Things are worse in our society, Applewood."

RP Gupta a scapegoat to help Govt of India manage fallout of Adani case in US court?

RP Gupta, a retired 1987-batch IAS officer from the Gujarat cadre, has found himself at the center of a growing controversy. During my tenure as the Times of India correspondent in Gandhinagar (1997–2012), I often interacted with him. He struck me as a straightforward officer, though I never quite understood why he was never appointed to what are supposed to be top-tier departments like industries, energy and petrochemicals, finance, or revenue.

PharmEasy: The only online medical store which revises prices upwards after confirming the order

For senior citizens — especially those without a family support system — ordering medicines online can be a great relief. Shruti and I have been doing this for the last couple of years, and with considerable success. We upload a prescription, receive a verification call from a doctor, and within two or three days, the medicines are delivered to our doorstep.

Powering pollution, heating homes: Why are Delhi residents opposing incineration-based waste management

While going through the 50-odd-page report Burning Waste, Warming Cities? Waste-to-Energy (WTE) Incineration and Urban Heat in Delhi , authored by Chythenyen Devika Kulasekaran of the well-known advocacy group Centre for Financial Accountability, I came across a reference to Sukhdev Vihar — a place where I lived for almost a decade before moving to Moscow in 1986 as the foreign correspondent of the daily Patriot and weekly Link .

Environmental report raises alarm: Sabarmati one of four rivers with nonylphenol contamination

A new report by Toxics Link , an Indian environmental research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi, in collaboration with the Environmental Defense Fund , a global non-profit headquartered in New York, has raised the alarm that Sabarmati is one of five rivers across India found to contain unacceptable levels of nonylphenol (NP), a chemical linked to "exposure to carcinogenic outcomes, including prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women."

Dalit rights and political tensions: Why is Mevani at odds with Congress leadership?

While I have known Jignesh Mevani, one of the dozen-odd Congress MLAs from Gujarat, ever since my Gandhinagar days—when he was a young activist aligned with well-known human rights lawyer Mukul Sinha’s organisation, Jan Sangharsh Manch—he became famous following the July 2016 Una Dalit atrocity, in which seven members of a family were brutally assaulted by self-proclaimed cow vigilantes while skinning a dead cow, a traditional occupation among Dalits.

Tracking a lost link: Soviet-era legacy of Gujarati translator Atul Sawani

The other day, I received a message from a well-known activist, Raju Dipti, who runs an NGO called Jeevan Teerth in Koba village, near Gujarat’s capital, Gandhinagar. He was seeking the contact information of Atul Sawani, a translator of Russian books—mainly political and economic—into Gujarati for Progress Publishers during the Soviet era. He wanted to collect and hand over scanned soft copies, or if possible, hard copies, of Soviet books translated into Gujarati to Arvind Gupta, who currently lives in Pune and is undertaking the herculean task of collecting and making public soft copies of Soviet books that are no longer available in the market, both in English and Indian languages.

Boeing 787 under scrutiny again after Ahmedabad crash: Whistleblower warnings resurface

A heart-wrenching tragedy has taken place in Ahmedabad. As widely reported, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane crashed shortly after taking off from the city’s airport, currently operated by India’s top tycoon, Gautam Adani. The aircraft was carrying 230 passengers and 12 crew members. As expected, the crash has led to an outpouring of grief across the country. At the same time, there have been demands for the resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and Civil Aviation Minister Venkaiah Naidu. The most striking comment came from BJP MP Subramanian Swamy, who stated : "When a train derailed in the 1950s, Lal Bahadur Shastri resigned. On the same morality, I demand PM Modi, HM Amit Shah, and Civil Aviation Minister Naidu resign so that a free and fair inquiry can be held. All that Modi and his associates have been doing so far is gallivanting, which must stop." Amidst widespread mourning, some fringe elements sought to communalize the tragedy. One post ...

Revisiting Gijubhai: Pioneer of child-centric education and the caste debate

It was Krishna Kumar, the well-known educationist, who I believe first introduced me to the name — Gijubhai Badheka (1885–1939). Hailing from Bhavnagar, known as the cultural capital of the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, Gijubhai, Kumar told me during my student days, made significant contributions to the field of pedagogy — something that hasn't received much attention from India's education mandarins. At that time, Kumar was my tutorial teacher at Kirorimal College, Delhi University.

Search This Blog