By
Motilal Mahamallik
Sponsored by Department of Planning, Government of Rajasthan

By
Motilal Mahamallik
Sponsored by Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Oslo, Norway

‘Land Grabbing’ is a common trend in the developing countries mainly post liberalisation. There are different actors involved in the issue of land grabbing. In India, the Scheduled Caste population with a small piece of land are the soft target of Land Grabbing. Due to their low education, low social status, low bargaining power, weak representation at different levels of government, and economically weak position these groups became the target of many. With this background, this study will examine the process of land grabbing, retaliation measures by the weaker sections of the population, action by different stakeholders, and the reasons for mobilisation of a people’s movement.

By
Motilal Mahamallik
Sponsored by Indian Council of Social Science Research, New Delhi

A large number of people in the cities are found to sleep in the open spaces of different cities of India. This is an emerging trend. With the shrinking of agricultural activities in rural area and due to frequent natural calamities, a large chunk of people have been migrating to urban areas in search of employment. These economically weak people are forced to sleep on the foot path of the cities in order to save money, and have to face a range of problems. In order to protect the interest of these people, after the intervention of the Honourable Supreme Court of India, central government and state Government have taken measures to accommodate these people in shelter homes on a temporary basis. However, it is observed that, most of the shelter homes in cities are underutilized and a large number of street homeless are found sleeping under the open sky. The present study will examine the mismatch between the needs of the urban street homeless and the provisions by the state for the urban street homeless.