After the job guarantee scheme played a crucial role in UPA’s reelection the government is working on a plan to reach out to 100 mil lion tribals to ensure remun eration for minor forest pro duce.

In a major step to empower forest dwellers, Jamguda in the tribal dominated Kalahandi district on Sunday became the first village in Orissa and second in the country to exercise its community right

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.

As part of the effort to grant tribal communities rights to minor forest produce, the Maharashtra Government has granted permission to 81 gram sabhas in Gadchiroli and Gondia districts of the state

Stating in unequivocal terms that no forest conservation activity would be possible without community participation, over 19 organisations representing traditional forest dwellers and other aborigi

Trouble is again being caused by the inherent contradictions between the two laws – the Indian Forest Act and the Forest Rights Act (FRA) – that govern India’s forests, their produce and the people