https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/05/us/politics/imaad-zuberi-trump-inauguration.html

India orders 'staggering' eviction of 1 million indigenous people

India's Supreme Court has ordered its government to evict a million people from their homes - for the good of the country's wildlife.

The ruling, issued Wednesday, was a startling conclusion to a decade-long case that has pitted the rights of some of India's most vulnerable citizens against the preservation of its forests.

The court told the government to evict over a million people - mostly members of indigenous tribes - from their homes in public forest land because they had not met the legal criterion to live there.

With over 700 tribal groups, India is home to over 100 million indigenous people. While the forest land is legally controlled by the government, people have lived in such areas for centuries.

A landmark law passed in 2006 gave legal rights over forest land and its produce to tribes and forest-dwelling communities provided they could prove that their families have stayed there for at least three generations.

The battle for mineral-rich forest land is not new in India. The ruling is the latest flash point in the competing interests of industry, wildlife conservationists and forest communities.

https://www.lmtonline.com/news/article/India-orders-staggering-eviction-of-1-million-13636354.php