Access to homestead land, and housing in turn, are basic requirements for human survival. Every citizen needs to have a safe, secure and healthy place to live, work and lead a life of dignity. A house provides not only physical protection against the vagaries of nature, but also space and privacy to an individual and his family for physical, emotional and intellectual growth.

RCDC assigned a task of compiling a report on the functioning of PESA in the state of Odisha based both on secondary analysis and primary survey at field level, to a local consultant organization National Institute for Development Innovation(NIDI) in late 2010. Agreeing with our observation that the report submitted under the same required further improvements and enrichments the consultant made fresh efforts in 2011 and submitted an improved version of the same without any extra charges.

The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act (RFCLARR) was enacted in 2013 replacing the land acquisition policies prevalent in the country since 1894. A year later, the Government of India on December 31, 2014 issued an ordinance making significant changes to the Act including removal of consent clause for acquiring land for areas of industrial corridors, public private partnership (PPP) projects, rural infrastructure, affordable housing and defence.

This new policy brief was commissioned by the Foundation for Ecological Security (FES) and has been co-authored by Shalini Bhutani and Kanchi Kohli. It captures in one document the SC’s judgement, the course it has taken there after and the policy options that prevail. The document draws from information collected from government departments in several states & UTs, case papers and media reports to understand what is the status of implementation, the challenges in the realisation of the SC’s commons Judgment and where the strengths lie.

This  Act  is  meant  mainly  to  arrest  and  curb  the unlawful  activity  of grabbing Government land, a local authority, a religious or Charitable Institution or Endowment including Wakf or any other private property, either individually or in groups either by force or decrepit or otherwise. 

Property rights economically empower women by creating opportunities for earning income, securing their place in the community and ensuring their livelihoods. When women are economically empowered, it spurs development for their families and communities. Property Rights and Gender in Uganda: A Training Toolkit seeks to strengthen understanding of property rights for women and men as equal citizens.

A constitutional amendment bill has been tabled before Parliament with the primary aim of overhauling the Constitutional Right to Protection from deprivation of property (Article 26).

This report investigates cases of land grabbing in Uganda, focusing in particular on oil palm plantations in Kalangala, Lake Victoria. It assesses the impacts on rural communities and on the local environment, and questions who benefits from these projects.

Rural Communities have their own sets of laws rooted in their particular culture, environment, traditions and history that are separate from national laws. Lack of education, years of wartime political oppression and violence, and government-enforced cooperative ventures during the 1970’s have created a deep feeling of suspicion among rural small-scale farmers for all government laws and programs. This
conception has been reinforced by the fact that historically communities have only been made aware of

This study examines the statutory recognition of customary land tenure in Botswana, Mozambique and Tanzania, which were chosen as case studies because of the diverse approaches to the issue they represent. Botswana's Tribal Land Act (1968) established a system of regional land boards and transferred the land administration and management powers of customary leaders to the boards, which originally included both customary leaders and state officials among their members.

After a number of constitutional amendments in 1990 had introduced the need to revise the legal framework for land and natural resources1, the government of Mozambique embarked upon a rather piecemeal process to develop a new policy and institutional framework for natural resource management. The main pillars of this framework consist of various pieces of legislation dealing with specific natural resources, such as the Land Law, the Forestry & Wildlife Law, the Mining Law and their related regulations and annexes.