In urban housing, the various Urban development authorities in all major Cities had earmarked specific lands for housing Societies exclusively fro Dalits or Scheduled Castes since a few decades. Have anyone conducted a study/ survey, how many Scheduled Castes still continue to live in these "Reserved plots and flats?" Almost all such properties have been sold or "power of attorney transfer" or benami transfer has been made in fictitious names. And the SC/ST have taken the money and gone back to live in hutments enjoying liquor and drugs with such windfall!! CAN A DOG'S TAIL BE STRAIGHTENED? This is what is going to happen if illiterate tribals are given forest land on ownership basis as they are more vulnerable than SC who are placed at an upper strata. Evangelists are waiting in the wings to "harvest" them!! Vested interests would stream into the forests and buy out the lands allotted to the tribals and after a decade you will find tourist resorts costing millions everywhere, the tribals chased out with the money paid and resuming their "hunting and honey collection". No evangelical **************** wouldn be there to save them!! Even if there are clauses of non-transferability/saleability, there are loopholes and the sharks would be cunning enough to get these lands for a price. Let the tribals enjoy the fruits of the land as they have been doing for Centuries, cultivate and harvest crops. But the land would still be Govt. property temporarily leased out FREE to the tribals with grants or loans to cultivate or honey keeping, poultry/ dairy farming..etc.. Have you seen what happened in Munnar in Kerala? Land sharks mostly Christian Ministers and evangelists have bought out the lands from tribals and thousands of villa-s are scattered on the mountain slopes with modern facilities for "Tourism". Even Chief Minister's special team could not evict the illegal occupants with powerful Congress connections. It would be the gretest tragedy and blunder if forest lands are distributed on ownership basis to the tribals, very vulnerable to manipulations of receipt of pittance from landsharka.
--- On Wed, 8/20/08, C.R Bijoy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: From: C.R Bijoy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [ =>> Jharkhand <<= ] Forest Rights: The Ongoing Struggle for Democracy To: Date: Wednesday, August 20, 2008, 1:43 PM Jharkhand Forum | Jharkhand Blog | Jharkhand Video | Jharkhand Network Friends, The struggle for forest rights continues across the country, with almost all States witnessing protests, clashes and the beginnings of implementation of the Forest Rights Act. The current State-wise status of the struggle has been updated and can be seen at: http://forestrights act.awardspace. com Click on the link for "Information on Ongoing Implementation of the Act." >From the time of the fight over the drafting of this law, the Campaign and the >other organisations that fought for it have always been clear that this law is >not just about recognising some individual land titles. It is the first step >in democratising the forest. And it is this agenda that has of course faced >the most resistance, and it is the steps towards democracy that have >continously been targeted by the government. This is now continuing in the struggle around implementation. Having failed to destroy the law itself, the Centre and practically all the State governments are now clear that they want to limit this Act to individual land titles, and to as few such titles as possible. The most powerful aspect sof the Act are the recognition of community rights to forest resources, and especially of the power to protect and conserve community forest resources. But every effort is being made to prevent the claiming and exercise of these rights. Thus, in Madhya Pradesh, forms for community rights are marked "N/A"; in Chhattisgarh, they have not been distributed at all; and, at the Central level, the Ministry has simply left out community forest resources from the claim forms entirely. In addition to the State-level work that has been going on till date, the Campaign has recently launched a nationwide struggle program on community rights. A statement will be issued on this shortly. As the true potential of the Act emerges in the struggles against Vedanta, POSCO and elsewhere, we have no doubt that this effort to divert the Act's true potential will continue. It was expected that the opponents of democracy in the forest would try to dilute and reduce the law to reduce the "damage" to their interests. This is now clearly happening. Campaign for Survival and Dignity
