Live from Mendha Lekha -Updates

Aparna Pallavi - Live from Mendha Lekha

Rural communities win right over bamboo, finally

A large crowd gathered at Mendha Lekha village in Maharashtra's Gadchiroli district in the morning on April 27 to witness a historic event. The state forest department handed over a transit passbook to the village community leader Devaji Tofa, signifying the village gram sabha would henceforth exercise the power to issue transit passes for selling bamboo harvested from the nearby forests.

Bamboo sale for bamboo rights

MENDHA Lekha village in Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra staged a novel protest on February 15. It organised a bamboo sale in the village to highlight the forest department’s refusal to grant transit passes to transport bamboo out of the village for sale.

Maharashtra muddies bamboo rights

THE Maharashtra forest department has proposed including bamboo under minor forest produce (MFP). While the department touts the initiative as a step towards giving ownership of bamboo to gram sabhas under the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA) Act, forest rights activists say it is an attempt to dilute the Forest Rights Act (FRA).

Is bamboo a tree or a grass?

The definition is contested as the answer has immense economic implications. If bamboo is a tree or timber, it belongs to the forest department and can be auctioned to the paper and pulp industry, often at throwaway rates.

Letters

Retrofit gadgets, reduce e-waste Electronic gadgets outnumber grocery items in a household these days (‘A different waste model’, June 1-15, 2010, and ‘IT’s underbelly’, May 16-31, 2010). What’s more, software-based devices such as cellular phones, cameras and computers have a short lifespan due to fast-growing research and constant innovation. What is a breakthrough today becomes outdated in a year. This results in piles of e-waste every year.

Forest titles only on paper

Mendha lekha in Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra was one of the first two villages in India to claim community ownership over its forests last December. Six months after they got their forest titles, the tribal villagers find bureaucratic hurdles are hampering their powers under the Forest Rights Act of 2006.

Not par for the coarse

In Maharashtra, the market is deserting weavers of traditional water-proof blankets

Two tribal villages get 2,349 hectares

Maharashtra is the first to recognize their rights over forests two villages in Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra have become the first in the country to win community rights over forests under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006. On August 15, Ramesh Bang, the state food and civil supplies minister, said the claims of Mendha Lekha and Marda villages over their village forests were accepted by the state

The unfolding story

Red Letter Day for bamboo