Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 (commonly known as Forest Rights Act or ROFR Act) is in news. Supreme Court had issued directive asking states to detail about actions taken against the forest rights claimants whose claims have been rejected.
Forest department has highlighted that there was no provision to act on ‘illegal’ occupants of forest land or penalise such claimants.
India’s forests are governed by two main laws, the Indian Forest Act, 1927 and the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972.
The former empowers the government to declare any area to be a reserved forest, protected forest or village forest.
The latter allows any area to be constituted as a “protected area”, namely a national park, wildlife sanctuary, tiger reserve or community conservation area.
Under these laws, the rights of people living in or depending on the area to be declared as a forest or protected area are to be “settled” by a “forest settlement officer.” This basically requires that officer to enquire into the claims of people to land, minor forest produce, etc., and, in the case of claims found to be valid, to allow them to continue or to extinguish them by paying compensation.
Studies have shown that in many areas this process either did not take place at all or took place in a highly faulty manner.
About the scehme: Rythu Bima life insurance scheme, introduced by the Telangana government, is being touted as the most unique of life insurance schemes wherein the death of farmers on any reason is compensated within a maximum period of seven days.
The Supreme Court scrapped the use of ‘None Of The Above’ (NOTA) option in the coming Rajya Sabha elections.
Digital payments firm Paytm has partnered with China's Alibaba to launch AI-based cloud computing platform 'Paytm AI Cloud'.
The platform will offer business-centric apps to developers, startups and enterprises that need cloud-computing solutions including customer engagement and easy-to-integrate payments. It will process and store all consumer data locally in servers located only in India.
Scientists have successfully developed the world's first 4D printing for ceramics.
It can be used to create complex, shape-changing objects.
4D printing is conventional 3D printing combined with the additional element of time as the 4th dimension.
The 4D printed objects can re-shape or self-assemble themselves over time with external stimuli, such as mechanical force, temperature, or a magnetic field.
The existing 3D-printed ceramic productions are usually difficult to deform and hinder the production of ceramics with complex shapes.
A novel ceramic ink was developed to stretch the ceramic products beyond its initial length and allow complex shapes with heat treatment.
Chief Election Commissioner O.P. Rawat’s view that it is not possible to hold simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and the State Assemblies soon.
It is a humongous task ahead of the Election Commission.
Along with a legal framework under which the extension or curtailment of the term of any Assembly is constitutionally permissible, simultaneous elections would demand a massive increase in the number of electronic voting machines (EVMs) and voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) units. Ensuring the availability of VVPATs everywhere poses a logistical challenge.
According to CEC altering the term of an Assembly needs an amendment to the Constitution.
Mizoram, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan assemblies are going to end their term between December and January. A new batch of VVPAT units is expected only by the end of November.
It takes a month for first-level checking, rendering the possibility of using them in the next round of elections remote.
Simultaneous elections will require the use of 24 lakh EVMs, needing the procurement of 12 lakh EVMs and an equal number of VVPAT units, according to its estimate.
These figures ought to give pause to the plan to hold simultaneous Assembly elections with the next Lok Sabha polls.