Jun Yang
Tsinghua University, China

In the last three decades, urbanization in China moved ahead at an unprecedented speed. Between 1978 and 2014, the urbanization rate increased from 17.9% to 53.7% (Chinese Government Network, 2015 [In Chinese]). During that time, more than five hundred million people moved from rural areas into cities. Rapid urbanization, along with industrialization, has propelled social and economic development not only in China, but globally as well.

By: Patrick Langat
Date: February 4th 2016
Source: AllAfrica.com / Daily Nation

The National Land Commission and the Ministry of Education have directed schools to acquire title deeds.

Only 7,000 of the 32,000 schools countrywide have the documents, NLC chairman Mohammad Swazuri said.

Dr Swazuri said that about 9,000 schools applied for title deeds following President Uhuru Kenyatta's directive in January last year.

By: Rubeena Mahato

Date: February 5th 2016

Source: Nepali Times

Gains of Nepal’s land rights movement has come not from bloodshed and war, but from a non-violent social movement.

In the larger scheme of things, the petty games that politicians play to keep themselves relevant should not matter much. They have done it year after year, decade after decade — it’s the same plot and even the characters are the same.

By: Shabir Ahmad

Date: February 5th 2016

Source: Kashmir Reader

ANANTNAG: A day after the Vigilance Organisation of Kashmir (VOK) booked congress leader and former PHE minister, Taj Mohiudin for grabbing the forest land in Shopian district, environmental activists demanded action against all the bigwigs who having encroached upon the prized forest land at Pahalgam.