Masala Journalism

I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways
I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans
I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall

Polluters or protectors? Farmers in Himachal Pradesh fight for their rights over forests
August 16, 2015 || Scroll.in

Farmers are rallying for the implementation of the Forest Rights Act, which gives them the right to govern forest resources, as a High Court order brands them 'polluters'.

On July 25, around 2,000 farmers gathered in Himachal Pradesh’s remote tribal district of Kinnaur to highlight the threat looming over their land, forests and livelihoods. Against the background of green hills, they thundered chants as local leaders gave rousing speeches. When the assembly dispersed, the farmers were still unsure if they had been heard, whether their demand for the implementation of the Forest Rights Act of 2006 would be met, particularly after a recent High Court order. || Full article

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Odisha diaries: the struggle for community control over land, forests and natural resources
April 25, 2015 || Down to Earth

No matter how much compensation is promised, companies will need ‘a social licence’ to conduct business on the land of the people

For the past 20 years, local communities across the eastern Indian state of Odisha have engaged in numerous movements to protect their customary lands and forests against industrial and government interests. Several have captured global attention, documenting resistance from some of India’s most marginalised communities in the face of dispossession and displacement. Now, Odisha’s communities are mobilising once more to assert their rights over the resources that define their culture and survival, using modern technology and India’s Forest Rights Act of 2006 (FRA). || Full article

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An Opportunity to Get Conservation Right
February 25, 2015 || Thomas Reuters Foundation

At People’s Rights Conference, Nepali communities affirm their rights to resources in a recently declared conservation zone

The hall burst into applause as the final declaration was read out. The audience, composed of community forestry user groups from Nepal’s Chure region, Indigenous Peoples, women’s rights groups, Dalit advocates, and youth vowed to continue the movement that had brought them together over the course of the past seven months.

Echoing in the hall was the demand to start including Chure’s people in determining the policies that govern the fate of the forests, land, and water they have depended upon for generations in the Himalayan country. || Full article