Kashmiri women who are permanent residents lose the right to own property in the state if they marry residents of other states

MUMBAI, July 31 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A woman from India's Jammu and Kashmir state is challenging a contentious law that denies women the right to own property in the state if she is married to someone from outside the state, saying it is discriminatory and violates her citizenship rights.

How do you deal with bureaucratic inefficiencies and weak capacity, to say nothing of endemic impoverishment, corruption, criminal gangs and staggering inequities that undermine property rights worldwide? Is there a way for those in the private and nonprofit sectors to engage with government to fill some of the gaps in the provision of property rights, without making the situation worse? A way to get involved without further complicating matters?

UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz [official website] called [press release] Friday for the US to adopt a consistent approach to indigenous land rights in pipeline projects.

The Regional Center for Social Science and Sustainable Development and the Mekong Land Research Forum will run a week-long intensive summer school on land research in the Mekong Region. The purpose of the summer school is to equip early-career academic and advocacy-oriented researchers with key concepts, access to existing research outputs, and knowledge of current land issues across the region in order to strengthen individual and networked research that is geared towards secure access to land amongst the region’s rural and urban poor.

The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, a grant-giving non-profit organization that supports independent global journalism, is seeking applications for data-driven journalism projects related to land rights and property rights. 

We are eager to see proposals that use open data to reveal new perspectives on property rights issues related to land tenure, indigenous land rights, transparency in land transactions and concessions, resource rights, or overlapping land use rights—just to name a few. 

Brazil says it is pushing ahead with plans to change the law and let foreigners buy farmland, in a move widely backed by investors and opposed by land rights campaigners.

"We will announce the changes in the next 30 days," Brazilian Finance Minister Henrique Meirelles said on Wednesday night in an interview with GloboNews television.

Agribusiness is one of the fastest growing sectors of Brazil's economy and Meirelles said its continued success requires more investment.

By: Anastasia Moloney

Date: 3 February 2017

Source: Reuters

Across Latin America just one percent of farms and estates control more than half of the region's productive land.

Giving women access to land in Guatemala is key to forging lasting peace and tackling inequality, Nobel peace laureate Rigoberta Menchu said on Friday, in a country where land distribution is one of the most unequal in the world.

By: Women Voice, Rong Chen

Date: January 5th 2017

Source: Women of China

Two high-ranking officials from China's Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) attended a press briefing on January 3 to explain the nation's latest policies on the reform of collective rural property rights.

Date: December 22nd 2016

Source: AllAfrica.com / African Development Bank Group

The African Development Bank (AfDB) and the Women in Parliaments Global Forum (WIP) hosting the first meeting of the WIP Council on Economic Empowerment in Kenya

By: Tracy Barnett

Date: December 19th 2016

Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation

LA YESCA, Mexico(Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Audelina Villagrana has run her ranch in Mexico's Western Sierra Madre mountains on her own since the death of her husband 23 years ago, herding livestock, hiring local Huichol people and even raising a young Huichol boy like a son.

By: Daily Times Editorial Board
Date: November 9th 2016
Source: DelMarvaNow

OPINION

Agricultural land makes up a substantial and important portion of Maryland's lower Eastern Shore, and the Maryland Farm Bureau is a vital advocacy organization for farmlands, farmers and poultry growers.