Coastal regulation zones

"The Government .... has allowed the 2008 draft Coastal Management Zone(CMZ) draft notification to lapse, as of July 2009. What happens to the Maharashtra government’s long-standing plan of relocating slum-dwellers to the saltpans so as to make available some of the world’s most expensive land in the heart of Mumbai for development? Has the Government taken back the CMZ draft merely because it was a shoddy job that did not please “even private developers”? Time will tell"

These are the concluding words of my historical review of coastal regulations carried in the April issue of Infochange Agenda ("On the waterfront"). The piece can be accessed  here.

Whose land is 'wasteland'?

Republican India has not broken with colonial law and policy even in the 21st century, continuing with the policy of considering as public land all land not assessed for revenue and taking over such land after declaring it ‘forest’ or ‘wasteland’ irrespective of the history of occupation and use.

Infochange Agenda article