Prindex Global and leading think tank NCAER will announce a new initiative today at the India Land and Development Conference 2021 to enhance land and housing rights in India. The project will go state by state mapping government performance on land records against people’s perceptions of their rights to drive policy progress in the country.

Architecture, by its very definition, involves the construction of structures. Structures that are meant to serve as spaces for work, living, religious devotion, amongst many other purposes. Architectural projects and interventions, however, need land – and it is this intrinsic relationship, between land and architecture, that has massive ramifications not only regarding reducing carbon emissions but more importantly in forming an equitable future rooted in climate justice.

In Bangladesh, one in every seven people will be displaced due to climate change by the end of 2050, according to recent estimation. Sea level rise may cause the displacement of up to 18 million people of Bangladesh. Natural disasters are another reason for displacement where 700,000 people on average migrate every year according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. In 2009, cyclone Aila displaced millions of people and many agricultural lands submerged with saline water.

Land disputes are one of the contested issues inherited the tribal districts, but after the merger, it has been constantly erupting into violence due to the government’s inactiveness. These disputes could be broadly categorized as 1) between individuals, 2) between tribes, 3) and government and the locals. Meanwhile, the lack of government interest in establishing a land record is not only the reason behind the violence, but an impediment to the progress of the tribal society.

Aug 25 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The Taliban’s return to power threatens Afghan women’s hard-won property rights, with thousands who fled their homes during the militants’ takeover at particular risk of losing their land and houses for good, rights groups and researchers said.

The Taliban imposed a strict Islamic law that largely denied women property rights during its 1996-2001 rule, but since then local authorities have been granting property titles to widows, divorced women and other female-led households.

The Land Commission of 1957 was critical of the manner in which during the past two decades land had been alienated without sufficient regard to its physical character and suitability for the purpose for which it was enacted. The Land Commission of 1987 correctly emphasized that the issues which dominated the attention of successive Land Commissions depended largely on governmental perspectives.

ECONOMYNEXT – Land owned by Sri Lanka railways will be offered for private developers for investment, Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa said presenting a budget speech.

“I propose to obtain investments through public-private partnerships and local and international sources to implement mixed development projects comprising of shopping malls, financial services, hotels, office facilities, cinema halls, entertainment centres [and] apartments,” he said in a budget for 2022.

He said some lands owned by Department of Railways are currently not being utilized productively.

Indigenous communities facing an upsurge in land grabs, water shortages and human rights violations as a result of the Cop26 deal have accused world leaders of sacrificing them in order to postpone meaningful climate action and shield corporate profits.

A recent report released by the United Nations revealed that 74% of speaking time at the U.N. climate talk negotiations is taken up by men.

President Joko Widodo claimed that deforestation in Indonesia is at its lowest point in the past 20 years. Indonesia’s Nationally Determined Contribution emissions reduction report to the United Nations said that there were only 39,285 hectares of deforested areas in 2013 to 2020. A Tempo investigation in Papua found otherwise: The area of deforestation from 2019 to 2020 alone covered 19,807 hectares. Timber companies have violated some regulations about forest conservation management and have illegally produced wood.