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Forest Rights Act After Ten Years

Forest Rights Act After Ten Years

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Forest Rights Act After Ten Years
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<strong>CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF LAW AND GOVERNANCE Jawaharlal Nehru University</strong> SEMINAR SERIES <strong>GEETANJOY SAHU </strong> Assistant Professor, TISS, Mumbai on <strong>Forest Rights Act After Ten Years </strong> The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 (hereafter FRA 2006) is going to complete ten years in December 2016. The Act has the potential to recognize the rights of 150 million forest dwelling people of around 1,73,000 villages over a minimum of 40 million hectares (mha) of forest land that they have been managing, using, and interacting with for centuries. The recognition and vesting of rights to forest dwelling communities over a minimum of 40 million hectares of forest land will be more than what hundred plus land reforms legislation of independent India could not able to achieve. In this presentation, I discuss what has been the impact of the FRA 2006 over the last ten years. In doing so, I highlight the gap between the promise and performance so far in the implementation of the Act. This is followed by a critical analysis of emerging challenges in the implementation of Forest Rights Act, especially in the enforcement of community forest resource rights under the Forest Rights Act. Then, I outline the possible areas that need to be strengthened to make the FRA more effective both in the pre and post-rights recognition phase. <strong>24 August, 2016</strong> ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Geetanjoy Sahu is associated with the Centre for Science, Technology &amp; Society, School of Habitat Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai. His research and teaching interests broadly include environmental policy and governance, analysis of environmental jurisprudence and politics of interaction between state and environmental groups over natural resource management. His work has also involved the development and analysis of forestry, tribal development, and land use pattern in coastal areas. He is the author of Environmental Jurisprudence and the Supreme Court: Litigation, Interpretation and Implementation (Orient BlackSwan, 2013).

A warm welcome to the modified and updated website of the Centre for East Asian Studies. The East Asian region has been at the forefront of several path-breaking changes since 1970s beginning with the redefining the development architecture with its State-led development model besides emerging as a major region in the global politics and a key hub of the sophisticated technologies. The Centre is one of the thirteen Centres of the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi that provides a holistic understanding of the region.

Initially, established as a Centre for Chinese and Japanese Studies, it subsequently grew to include Korean Studies as well. At present there are eight faculty members in the Centre. Several distinguished faculty who have now retired include the late Prof. Gargi Dutt, Prof. P.A.N. Murthy, Prof. G.P. Deshpande, Dr. Nranarayan Das, Prof. R.R. Krishnan and Prof. K.V. Kesavan. Besides, Dr. Madhu Bhalla served at the Centre in Chinese Studies Programme during 1994-2006. In addition, Ms. Kamlesh Jain and Dr. M. M. Kunju served the Centre as the Documentation Officers in Chinese and Japanese Studies respectively.

The academic curriculum covers both modern and contemporary facets of East Asia as each scholar specializes in an area of his/her interest in the region. The integrated course involves two semesters of classes at the M. Phil programme and a dissertation for the M. Phil and a thesis for Ph. D programme respectively. The central objective is to impart an interdisciplinary knowledge and understanding of history, foreign policy, government and politics, society and culture and political economy of the respective areas. Students can explore new and emerging themes such as East Asian regionalism, the evolving East Asian Community, the rise of China, resurgence of Japan and the prospects for reunification of the Korean peninsula. Additionally, the Centre lays great emphasis on the building of language skills. The background of scholars includes mostly from the social science disciplines; History, Political Science, Economics, Sociology, International Relations and language.

Several students of the centre have been recipients of prestigious research fellowships awarded by Japan Foundation, Mombusho (Ministry of Education, Government of Japan), Saburo Okita Memorial Fellowship, Nippon Foundation, Korea Foundation, Nehru Memorial Fellowship, and Fellowship from the Chinese and Taiwanese Governments. Besides, students from Japan receive fellowship from the Indian Council of Cultural Relations.