Category: News

The Madras High Court on Tuesday upheld the constitutional validity of Section 105 of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (RFCT) Act of 2013. The provision was challenged because it exempts certain chapters of the legislation from being made applicable to acquisitions for national highways, railways, electricity and 10 other purposes.

A Division Bench of Justices T.S. Sivagnanam and V. Bhavani Subbaroyan held that striking down Section 105 would actually be detrimental, and not beneficial, to those whose lands were being acquired for national highways. The judges said the land owners might get deprived of benefits such as rehabilitation and resettlement provided to them. Read more

Courtesy: The Hindu

Adivasis have been losing forestlands, and the govt now appears to be going after activists and lawyers who fight for their rights.

After I covered the Kisan Long March earlier this year, travelling with the huge farmers’ group of mostly tribals from Nashik to Mumbai for a week, the so-called experts on my Twitter timeline presented a baffling argument: you can either be a farmer or an adivasi. I think the readers of this column know better.

Farmers have been perennially at the wrong end of land acquisition in India. Do Bigha Zameen, directed by Bimal Roy in 1953, is sadly still relevant. Adivasis are more vulnerable because most of them don’t even hold titles for the land they have tilled for decades. Under the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006, they are the rightful owners, but the law has hardly materialised on the ground. Read more

Courtesy: Mumbai Mirror