A desperate Bengal ousted the Left, seeking ‘poribarton’. Six months on, Mamata Banerjee is as vocal as she was while lavishing poll promises, yet ‘change’ looks elusive as ever. So, what’s holding back poribarton?
Snow leopards share a particularly punishing habitat with people in the higher reaches of the Himalayas, with resources scarce and vegetation sparse. The conventional conservation model of separating wild animals and people simply does not work here. India’s green establishment is showing signs of accepting this reality, if only grudgingly
The environment ministry’s new draft guidelines have corrected some anomalies after Open’s investigation flagged key issues plaguing the relocation of 40,000 families from core tiger forests.
Of the total 60,000 claims filed under the Forest Rights Act in Assam, nearly 30,000 came from a single district. Little wonder, then, that the administration controls less than a third of Sonitpur’s forests. While no political party minds legalising this mass encroachment in the Bodo heartland, the fate of the wilderness hangs by a 2009 High Court order.
The Posco project in Odisha is not just about violation of human rights or an ecological disaster. It is a brazen example of how the country’s high and mighty are shifting goalposts to favour a powerful foreign multinational corporation
The Left Front has been the biggest advocate of the Forest Rights Act (FRA), but its own former rule in home state West Bengal saw its worst abuse as well. Forest villagers dependent on tea garden jobs are indifferent to the Act. Families inside the Buxa tiger reserve are keen to surrender their rights for Rs 10 lakh each. But away from tea gardens and outside the tiger reserve, forest communities have bigger demands than the FRA allows. And a desperate forest department twists the Act to retain control.
The Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple Wildlife Sanctuary in Karnataka has been notified as a tiger reserve. While this tag will fetch extra conservation funds for the sanctuary, it threatens to displace Soliga tribals from their ancestral habitat. New generations of Soligas may not be content with their forefathers’ way of life, but this forest will lose its soul without them. And India will lose one of its best opportunities to try out a model of coexistence between wildlife and eco-sensitive people
TCA Raghavan is a former Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan and Singapore. His first book, Attendant Lords: Abdur Rahim and Bairam Khan: Courtiers and Poets in Mughal India, was awarded the Mohammad Habib Prize by the Indian History Congress. He is also the author of The People Next Door: The Curious History of India’s Relations with Pakistan and History Men: Jadunath Sarkar, G S Sardesai, Raghubir Sinh and Their Quest for India’s Past. His latest book is Circles of Freedom: Love, Friendship and Loyalty in the Indian National Struggle