The IMF’s April 2025 Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa presents a clear warning: regional growth is slowing, debt pressures are mounting, and donor assistance is declining. Yet the report outlines critical opportunities particularly in domestic revenue mobilization, structural reform, and private sector activation that can shape a more resilient …
GADCHIROLI in Maharashtra may have acquired the model district status for clearing a record number of community forest rights (CFR) claims, but its 298 villages are angry with the forest department for stripping them of the basic right to manage forest produce. The department has also burdened them with conditions, …
THE Union government is reviewing its landmark initiative, the Forest Rights Act, four years after enacting it. The aim is to find how to strengthen the law which was legislated to ensure the traditional rights of 100 million forest dwelling people in the country. Two high-level groups submitted their assessment …
Activists said forest dwellers get a raw deal in trade in nationalised MFP items. “Collection of forest produce is hard work. Women trudge through forests for long hours collecting mahua and lac and lug heavy loads, but have to sell their produce at a fraction of the market price,” said …
Can MFP help people break the cycle of poverty in the Naxal–affected districts? There are instances that offer hope. Subelal Markam, a Baiga tribal of Korka village in Madhya Pradesh used to get just Rs 1.5 to Rs 2 per bamboo piece from middlemen. In 2007, the forest department helped …
The Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 and the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers Act of 2006 offer a great opportunity to provide equitable governance in tribal-dominated backward areas. But these laws are skeletons and need the flesh and sinews of operational rules and guidelines, removal …
The Kerala government has decided to amend the terms of auction of timber and other forest products from government depots and forest ranges for speedy realisation of revenues. The new stipulations, finalised at a high-level meeting convened by Forest Minister Benoy Viswom, specifies that successful bidders would have to pay …
In a bid to boost the production of bamboo, considered to be an important cash crop, the National Bamboo Mission is training about 30 farmers of Golaghat, Sivasagar and Jorhat districts at composite training centre here. The three-day training underway at the centre is being conducted by resource persons of …
"It is a great moment for me to come to Nagaland today with a purpose and a mission to revive in dealing with the Nagaland Paper & Pulp Company (NPPC) and to physically see and to get the first hand impression about the unit so that we could jointly work …
Three new afforestation schemes were started last year including Urja Van Yojana, Charagah Vikas Yojana and Vidya Van Yojana in the state. These schemes have yielded excellent results following which the target for these schemes for the next financial year has been increased. There is a big gap between demand …
The National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP) has estimated that if adequate market infrastructure is set up the northeastern India, within a span of 10 years, can garner $ one billion out of the total global market of $ 7 billion for bamboo-rhino value chain. The regional planning …
The three-day residential training programme on modern bamboo structure and housing organised by Cane and Bamboo Technology Centre (CBTC) in collaboration with Building Material and Technology Promotion Council (BMPTC), ended successfully at Kohra, Kaziranga recently. The seminar was held recently with the main objective to provide technical know-how on the …
Tripura government is contemplating to utilise unused land across the state to make the state one of the major rubber producing states around the globe. The landlocked state, which has already become the second largest producing state in the country, will emerge as one of the best rubber producing zones …
Northeastern states have exported bamboo products worth Rs 24.85 Crore in 2006-07, which was Rs 17.28 crore in 2005-06 and Rs 14.18 Crore in 2004-05, newly appointed Industry and Commerce Minister of sixth Left Front Government in Tripura Jitendra Choudhury yesterday said. He said bamboo and cane products of North-east …
The National Steering Committee (NSC) of the National Bamboo Mission (NBM), held under the chairmanship of the Secretary (Agriculture & Cooperation), Govt of India, on January 17, 2008, had approved an amount of Rs 36 lakh for establishment of an R&D; centre on bamboo cultivation for non-forest areas at Biswanath …
A special team of the Coimbatore City Police late on Saturday night arrested in Kerala three of a 10-member inter-State sandalwood smuggling gang that robbed two policemen of a pistol here on February 23. The pistol was not recovered. The city police had constituted special teams to probe the incident. …
Punjab has chosen as a nodal state by the Union Agriculture Ministry to implement the National Bamboo Mission Programme for promoting cultivation, value addition, processing and marketing of bamboo crop. Tikshan Sud, forests and wildlife preservation minister said to promote diversification of land use, Punjab had submitted a proposal to …
With the North-east teeming with 63 species of bamboo, which account for nearly 50 per cent of the total species of woody monocots found in India, the Deovan-based Rain Forest Research Institute here is gearing up to emerge as a
Often termed as poor man's timber, bamboo, with its various new applications can well be an alternative housing solution for the earthquake prone areas due to its high tensile strength structurally. Exploring the use of bamboo as an alternative to the rapidly depleting wood resources in housing and other industrial …
