The
amendments were made to move towards more direct democracy in villages and
cities, which remained largely as a dream even after two decades of its
acceptance (hardly been implemented). The development decisions have
consistently maintained a top-down approach and have left the citizens devoid
of financial and legal powers to find solutions to the issues.
Exceptions— where communities
have taken power into their own hands
·
Instances
of tribal self-rule in central India;
·
The
partial measures of State governments like Nagaland with its ‘communitisation’
law,
·
Providing
greater powers over departmental budgets to village councils; and
·
Kerala
with its experiment in people
planning
Forest
Rights Act of 2006—
·
The
Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest
Rights) Act, 2006, is a key piece of forest legislation passed in India on
December 2006.
·
The
law recognizes the rights of forest-dwelling communities to land and other
resources, denied to them over decades as a result of the continuance of
colonial forest laws in India.
·
The Act basically does two things:
o Grants legal
recognition to the rights of traditional forest dwelling communities, partially
correcting the injustice caused by the forest laws— to govern, use, and
conserve forests they have traditionally managed and used
o Makes a beginning
towards giving communities and the public a voice in forest and wildlife
conservation
Rights
granted under the Act?
·
Title rights –e. ownership – to land that is being
fared by tribals or forest dwellers as on 13 December 2005, subject to a
maximum of 4 hectares; ownership is only for land that is actually being
cultivated by the concerned family as on that date, meaning that no new lands
are granted.
·
Use rights – to minor forest produce (also including
ownership), to grazing areas, to pastoralist routes.
·
Relief and development rights – to rehabilitation in
case of illegal eviction or forced displacement and to basic amenities, subject
to restrictions for forest protection
·
Forest management rights – to protect forests
and wildlife
·
Right to intellectual property and traditional knowledge related to
biodiversity and cultural diversity
·
Rights of displaced communities
Way
Ahead:
·
The principle of ‘free and prior informed consent’
(FPIC)—enshrined
in international agreements was reiterated most strongly in the recent UN
Declaration on the Rights
of Indigenous Peoples.
o India has not yet
brought this into its legislative framework, other than in partial forms such
as the circular under the Forest Rights Act and the long-forgotten PESA
o Need to press for FPIC
to be incorporated as a central tenet of all development and welfare planning;
with widespread being a necessary step forward (owing to rampant dilution of
hard-fought rights of freedom of speech and dissent, access to information, and
decentralised decision-making)
·
Deeper
democratic reforms need to be incorporated in the developmental strategy as
this would help ordinary people get political, economic, and legal powers
through grass-roots collectives that enable them to take decisions affecting
their lives. Such direct or radical democracy needs to be the fulcrum on which
more representative institutions at larger scales would operate, downwardly
accountable through various mechanisms.
·
The
alternative pathways of human well-being need to be brought into the
mainstream, including forms of economic activity that are:
o Ecologically sustainable,
o Directly in the
control of people rather than the state or corporations,
o More locally
self-reliant
Less dependent on
fragile global webs of exchangekeywords
Spirit behind the 73rd and 74th Amendments to the Constitution
How many amendments are there in Indian Constitution?
What is the local self government?
How many articles are there in India?
Who introduced the Local Self Government in India?
What are the Importance Points of 73rd and 74th
Constitutional
What are the Importance Points of 73rd and 74th
Constitutional
No comments:
Post a Comment