Forestland benefits

By LIAN CHAWIIThe Lok Vaniki scheme, introduced in Madhya Pradesh in 1999, aims at empowering the farmers to manage their degraded forestland so as to derive maximum benefits by selling its produce, including timber.

Owning up

Two months after four people were killed in Dewas, Madhya Pradesh (MP), the state government seems to be finally owing up its responsibility. Albeit with a lot of pressure, compensations have been given and activists have been released from custody. However, it seems that the larger issues are still to be addressed and the government response to an enquiry to the incident is still not complete.

Callous forest law

Trouble in Dewas

the Madhya Pradesh government would like to forget it. The residents of Dewas district, however, will remember it for the rest of their lives. Four people were killed in a confrontation between the administration and the tribal people at Mehendikheda village, about 100 km from the district headquarters of Dewas, when police opened fire on a group of protesters on April 2, 2001. Several others, including one police personnel, were also injured.

Pitching in for a pond

for the people of Mandsaur, Dewas and Dhar districts of Madhya Pradesh drought has been a daily scourge that they learnt to live with. They would wait endlessly for water trains, lock barrels of water to prevent theft and protest sporadically against the scarcity. The recent drought, however, has made the government adopt a novel scheme in which it involved the victims themselves in conserving their lifeline.

Catching water where it falls

for years, Dewas district in the Malwa region of Madhya Pradesh, has been facing the grim prospect of desertification following the unregulated use of groundwater in the region. But it seems a people's movement launched by M Mohan Rao, district magistrate, may yet manage to avert such a fate.