MILLIONS of adivasis held hundreds of nation-wide protests against the shoddy implementation of the existing Forest Rights Act (FRA) and demanded that the Forest Rights Act (Amendment) Bill, 2019 be withdrawn immediately, after the introduction of the amendment bill on February 13.

Under the banner of ‘Bhumi Adhikar Andolan’, adivasis submitted memorandums to the prime minister and chief ministers of various states and said that the amendment bill will throw millions of adivasis and other traditional forest dwellers out of their lands and destroy their traditional farm lands. 

THE AIDWA, SFI, DYFI, JASS (Jati Ant Sangharsh Samiti) held an angry protest demonstration outside Nair Hospital in Mumbai on May 27 to condemn the harassment, casteist humiliation and threats meted out to Dr Payal Tadvi by three senior women colleagues in the Topiwala National Medical College (TNMC) and BYL Nair Charitable Hospital, that ultimately drove her to commit suicide on May 22 in her hostel room. Dr Payal was an adivasi girl hailing from the Jalgaon district of Maharashtra.

THE National Platform for the Rights of the Disabled (NPRD) has registered its strong remonstration against the continuation of certain blatantly discriminatory attitudes in the matter of admissions to MBBS, as reflected in the latest “Amendment Notification” of February 4, 2019 to modifying the Regulation on Graduate Medical Education, 1997. These amended regulations debarring certain categories of disabled persons from pursuing medicine is a clear violation of the provisions of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 and the rules framed thereunder.

ON the occasion of the 63rd death anniversary of Babasaheb Ambedkar, Ramchandra Dome, general secretary of Dalit Shoshan Mukti Manch (DSMM) and V Srinivasa Rao, secretary, paid tributes to Babasaheb Ambedkar at his memorial Chaityabhoomi in Mumbai on December 6 and visited the proposed Indu Mill memorial. The programme was organised by the Jati Ant Sangharsh Samiti (JASS) which is affiliated to the DSMM, along with Left and democratic parties – CPI(M), CPI, SKP, Lal Nishan Party and others.

SEVERAL disability rights organisations, women’s organisations, survivors and legal experts sat together in a convention on November 25, against sexual assaults on girls and women with disabilities. Organised by the National Platform for the Rights of the Disabled (NPRD) this was the first time a convention at the national level was being held to discuss and focus attention on issues and concerns of disabled women in the matter of sexual assaults.

More than 150 delegates from various states took part in the convention.