ILDC 2021 | ILDC

As the world was dealing with a pandemic, its repercussions were being reflected in India as well, along with an economic crisis and mass reverse migration which had significantly impacted the lives and livelihoods of people, ILDC2021 invited attention to the relevance of land security, in inclusive and sustainable development with inbuilt resilience to future shocks. Relevant, thought-provoking and disruptive enquiries, ideas, experiences and analysis were invited from individuals, institutions and partnerships. Like the previous years, ILDC2021 provided platforms for enriching and interdisciplinary conversations in form of sessions for presentations, panel discussions, round tables as well as avenues like master classes, lightning talks and focussed conclaves.

Along with intellectual deliberations and engagement, ILDC2021, also hosted pre and post-conference events with ample scope to connect and network with inter-sectoral land actors participating from India and abroad.

South and South East Asia countries carry similar land tenure and land use regime, with cultural, geographic and ecological similarity. While they have attempted socialist land reform and witnessed economically liberalisation, the national political upheavals and influence of social movements have shaped their land governance process and tenure security outcomes. There remains considerable potential for cross learning to help regional cooperation and scaling up.

With an area of about 30 million km2 (20% of the earth surface) and about 800 million inhabitants, Africa is the second largest and most populous continent after Asia. Similar socio-economic, cultural and land administration contexts, colonial legacies, land use, development and investment transitions, as well as ongoing adoption of similar legal and technical pathways, make it imperative to share information and experience and engage in cross-learning conversations and explore collaborations.

Focus areas

Video of the session
Geminiano Sandoval

ANGOC Regional Overview
Denise Hyacinth Joy Musni ANGOC Country context and reflections, SE Asia
Jagat Basnet

CSRC(Nepal) Country context and reflections, South Asia
Moderator:

Nathaniel Don Marquez

ANGOC
Discussant:

Shekhar Shah

Former NCAER Director General & World Bank Regional Economic Adviser for South Asia.
Roni Septian KPA (Indonesia) Country context and reflections, SE Asia
Learning event
Nhek Sarin

SK (Cambodia) Country context and reflections, SE Asia
In 2008, the United Nations endorsed the ‘Protect, Respect, and Remedy Framework’ for business and human rights. This framework unequivocally recognizes that States have the duty under international human rights law to protect everyone within their territory and/or jurisdiction from human rights abuses committed by business enterprises. The UN Framework also addresses the human rights responsibilities of businesses. Business enterprises have the responsibility to respect human rights wherever they operate and whatever their size or industry. In other words, companies must know—and show—that they respect human rights in all their operations.

More importantly, the UN Framework clarifies that the corporate responsibility to respect human rights exists independently of the States’ ability or willingness to fulfil their duty to protect human rights. No matter the context, States and businesses retain these distinct but complementary responsibilities.

On 16 June 2011, the United Nations Human Rights Council unanimously endorsed the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), a set of guidelines that operationalize the UN Framework and further define the key duties and responsibilities of States and business enterprises with regard to business-related human rights abuses. Henceforth, the Working Group on Business and Human Rights (UNWG) was mandated by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to promote the effective and comprehensive implementation of the UNGP BHR. The UNWG likewise noted in its 2016 Guidance on Business and Human Rights that National Action Plans (NAPs) can be an important means to promote the implementation of the UNGP BHR (DIHR,n.d.).

Given the increasing pressures on land due to investments, CSOs working on land rights have an important role in mainstreaming and monitoring the implementation of the UNGPs. Thus, the Land Watch Asia Working Group on Mainstreaming Land Rights as Human Rights (LWA LRHR WG) through the initiative “Defending Land Rights and Human Rights Defenders” embarked on engaging National Human Rights Institutions/Commissions (NHRIs/Cs) to mainstream UNGPs in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Nepal and the Philippines. Through the support of the International Land Coalition (ILC), six country papers were prepared and discussed in order to provide an overview of the relevance of the UNGPs in the context of land and agribusiness investments, identify challenges faced in mainstreaming the UNGP BHR, and formulate key recommendations based on the consultation processes. A regional summary of the studies was then prepared by ANGOC. This regional report was subsequently presented in an online regional workshop “Mainstreaming Land Rights in the UNGPs in Asia” jointly organized by ANGOC, LWA, ILC, Commission of Human Rights of the Philippines (CHRP), Southeast Asia National Human Rights Institution Forum (SEANF), Office of the High Commission for Human Rights in Southeast Asia (OHCHR) and UNDP’s Business and Human Rights Team in Asia (UNDP-B+HR).
V B Rawat

SDF(India) Country context and reflections, South Asia
Shah Mobbin Jinnah

CDA (Bangladesh) Country context and reflections, South Asia

Geminiano Sandoval
Presentation
Video of the
session

Marianne Naungayan
Presentation

Denise Musni
Denise Musni

ANGOC 2020 Land and Resource Conflict Monitoring Initiative in Asia: Rationale and Background, Methodology Used, Country Experiences and Reflections
Many social conflicts are rooted in issues related to land and resource rights. This is a fact recognized globally, even by the UN System in the UN Secretary General Guidance Note on Land and Conflict released in 2019. In Asia, such conflicts may be traced to enduring historical injustices, inequitable access to land and resources, faulty and weak implementation of past land and resource reforms, emergent clashes between statutory and customary tenure systems, misappropriation of State domains, and the lack of regard for human rights of the disadvantaged and vulnerable sectors (Quizon, 2018). Land conflicts over time have increased in number, coverage, and intensity. While a huge portion of land and resource conflicts occur in the context of state development or corporate interest (i.e., mining, plantations, economic zones), many conflicts also occur when policies over the same parcels of land overlap or when laws are poorly implemented.

In 2018, the Land Watch Asia Working Group on Land Rights as Human Rights (LWA WG LRHR) produced country studies on land conflicts in six countries in Asia. The goal of the initiative was to contribute towards a better understanding of land and resource conflicts that impinge on human rights, by providing evidence-based data for policy – towards the prevention and resolution of such conflicts. While the 2018 land conflict monitoring reports proved to be useful for painting a picture on land conflicts and their effects on communities and land rights defenders for informed advocacies, the use of different methodologies limited the scope for consolidation, comparison, and analysis of data at national and regional level.

Thus, the 2020 land conflict monitoring reports have built on the 2018 monitoring initiative, by implementing a more systematic way to gather data and to report on land conflicts. Following a regional training on land conflict monitoring (Jakarta, March 2020), members of the LWA WG LRHR gathered information on land conflict and rights violations. A common monitoring methodology was piloted in the six Asian countries (Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Nepal, and the Philippines), although several differences in approaches were also observed at the country level. The monitoring period has covered one calendar year (January to December 2020).
Session Organizer:
Marianne Naungayan

ANGOC Findings of the 2020 Land and Resource Conflict Monitoring, and Experiences in Implementing the Methodology in the Philippines
Kashish Gupta

CLRA Findings of the 2020 Land and Resource Conflict Monitoring, and Experiences in Implementing the Methodology in India
Nathaniel Don Marquez, ANGOC Future of Land Conflict Monitoring in India: Challenges, Opportunities, Ways Forward
Mrinali Karthick

Land Conflict Watch
Discussant:

Usha Ramnathan

Senior Law Researcher and Human Rights Activist
Mrinali Karthick

Land Conflict Watch
Video of the session
Dr. Rikcardo Simamtara,
University of Gadjah Mada,
Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Indonesia: Critical issues in communal land registration
Southeast Asia is one of the richest regions in terms of land, biodiversity and natural resources. However, the region’s land and biodiversity are at risk as extractive industries and lack of coherent policy and legal frameworks continue to trigger significant internal and external socio-economic-cultural stresses. The session will examine and analyse land governance in Southeast Asia with special focus on tenure security and the political economy of land-based sectors.

It will discuss the current status of individual land holdings of smallholder farmers, who along with traditional forest dwellers, are among the poorest in the region. A rapidly urbanising Southeast Asia faces shortage of land for housing and infrastructure. Fragile tenure security causes land- related disputes and conflicts. Hence in this session, policy and civil society leaders will share experiences and lessons learned in strengthening sustainable land administration and management systems in Indonesia, Myanmar and Vietnam.
Session Organizer:
U Shwe Thein

Executive Director, Land Core Group, Yangon
Myanmar: How the National Land Use Policy was developed and applied in Myanmar
Dr. Mai Van Phan

Deputy Director General, General Director of Land Adminstration MoNRE, Government of Vietnam
Vietnam: Land law, land rights and land reforms: Some experience from Vietnam
Discussant:
Dr. Trias Aditya

University of Gadjah Mada in Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Moderator:
Dr. Dzung The Nguyen
Vietnam
Mr. Vinod Agarwal
Former Additional Chief secretary (Land Revenue Department) Telangana State
Dharm Raj Joshi

Ram Prakash Singh Danuwar, Habitat for Humanity Nepal
Land governance and its management responsibilities are distributed among three levels of governments-Federal, Provincial and local level governments in the changed legal and governance context of Nepal with the promulgation of the current Constitution in 2015. Governments at all level are formulating required laws, acts, policies and plans related to land to realize constitutional provisions for rights to land of landless Dalits and Peasant families. But the greatest dilemmas that the policy makers seem facing on how to make land easily accessible equitably and inclusively to those whose livelihood depend on it but have no easy and adequate access. Newly endorsed Acts and Plans related to land and natural resource have partially addressed these needs. But still there are ample rooms for improving land governance situation through the effective and timely implementation of the available policy tools which will further contribute in translating peoples; aspirations of better lives and government long-term vision of prosperous Nepal, happy Nepali; into actions in this changed the political, governance and legal context of Nepal. Complexity of land-related issues in Nepal can also be seen from the pilot phase results of LANDex implementation – there is no proper documentation of land size disaggregated by tenure type, gender and ethnicity in the National Agriculture Census, Living Standard Surveys, National Population Census; and no recognition of indigenous peoples; land tenures,. According to the LANDex pilot phase results, Nepal has overall 49 score, which shows a lot of room to work in this sector. Good governance of land resources is identified as a key to opening up new avenues to achieve prosperity, equality, and justice as envisioned by the Constitution of Nepal and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Given this context, CSOs in Nepal have initiated various people-led initiatives to reform the land governance in Nepal. Objectives The overarching objective of the session is to share the Nepali experience of land reform among the international community
Session Organizer:

Presentation
Video of the session
Dharm Raj Joshi

National Coordinator, (LGWG) Nepal
Jagat Deuja

Former Expert Member, (LIRC), Nepal
Dr. Purna Bahadur Nepali, Associate Professor, (KU SOM)
Moderator:

Dr. Reshma Shrestha

Assistant Professor, Kathmandu University, Nepal
Discussant:

Mr. Deepak Sanan

IAS (Retd), former- Addl Chief Secretary, HP and former Advisor to NCAER, IIHS & CPR
U Shwe Thein
Executive Director,
Land Core Group, Yangon. Myanmar: Recognition of customary tenure in Myanmar
Around 45 percent of the world’s indigenous people or ethnic minorities (about 190 million people) live in the Southeast Asia-Pacific region. Forest dwellers constitute one of the region’s largest impoverished groups. Several governments in the region are now taking steps to recognize customary rights to bring about meaningful change.

This session will highlight experiences from Myanmar and India (that share not only borders but also socio-cultural practices in community land administration) as well as processes in recording customary lands.

It will discuss community mapping practices and alternative dispute resolution methods. Experiences in the use of FPIC principles and standards on forest rights’ recognition will also be shared. A representative from Indonesia, where customary tenure and indigenous rights dominate, will reflect on the existing policy and legal environment for recognizing customary tenure and build on the issues and opportunities highlighted by speakers from Myanmar and India.
Session Organizer:

Video of the session
Dr. Walter Fernandes
S.J. North Eastern Social Research Centre, India.
India: The Status of Customary Tenure in Northeast India – Challenges ahead
Dr. Martua Sirait
Director, SAMDHANA, Indonesia Reflections on the thematic presentations and indigenous peoples’ land rights in Indonesia
Saw Frankie Abreu
Director, Tripnet
Moderator:
Saw Doh Wah
Deputy Program Director,
Land Core Group
Discussant:
Dr. Vincent T Darlong
Centre for Sustainable Development Studies, MLCU, Meghalaya.
Naw Ei Ei Min
Director, Point
Dr. Bitopi Dutta

University of Petroleum and Energy Studies,Dehradun Gender, Development, and highlanders in transition: A comparative analysis of Meghalaya in India and Chittagong Hills in Bangladesh

Presentation

Badhon Chiran
Southeast Asia is one of the richest regions in terms of land, biodiversity and natural resources. However, the region’s land and biodiversity are at risk as extractive industries and lack of coherent policy and legal frameworks continue to trigger significant internal and external socio-economic-cultural stresses. The session will examine and analyse land governance in Southeast Asia with special focus on tenure security and the political economy of land-based sectors.

It will discuss the current status of individual land holdings of smallholder farmers, who along with traditional forest dwellers, are among the poorest in the region. A rapidly urbanising Southeast Asia faces shortage of land for housing and infrastructure. Fragile tenure security causes land- related disputes and conflicts. Hence in this session, policy and civil society leaders will share experiences and lessons learned in strengthening sustainable land administration and management systems in Indonesia, Myanmar and Vietnam.
Video of the
session
Nasrin Siraj

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Gender,Development, and highlanders in transition: A comparative analysis of Meghalaya in India and Chittagong Hills in Bangladesh
Mr. Badhon Chiran

Caritas Mymensingh The Assistance for Land Settlement of the Adivasi (ALSA) Project: key learning and best practice for community-led, participatory land mapping initiatives
Mr Bulbul Mankhin

Caritas Mymensingh The Assistance for Land Settlement of the Adivasi (ALSA) Project: key learning and best practice for community-led, participatory land mapping initiatives
Dr Oliver Scanlan

Center for Sustainable Development, University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh Strengths and gaps of formalization programme design and implementation: a case study from Jamalpur, Bangladesh.
Chair:

Dr. Nivedita Haran

IAS (Retd), former-Addl Chief Secretary, Kerala and Faculty, JNU
Dr Hery Santoso

Researcher at Palm Oil Research Institute of Indonesia. Smallholder and boom-crop production: From rubber to palm oil: Lessons from Indonesia.
Session Organizer:

Palm oil is used in thousands of everyday products and is the most widely consumed vegetable oil on the planet. But its usage has generated controversy, as huge areas of rainforests have been cleared to make way for palm plantations, particularly in Southeast Asia. India imports about 30 percent of its palm oil from Malaysia and 70 percent from Indonesia. India now aims to double its total area under oil palm cultivation to 650,000 hectares by 2025-26 in order to secure domestic supply. This India’s stated goal has raised concerns among both land rights activists and environmentalists.

This session aims to examine the experiences of Southeast Asian countries to understand how oil palm has destroyed both the environment and local livelihoods, in the hope that mistakes can be identified and avoided in Indian or other contexts. Amid growing concern over palm oil plantations and their impacts on the economy, ecology, and forest and rural dwellers, this session will share experiences from Indonesia and Myanmar to create awareness on sustainability issues
Video of the session
Glenn Hunt

Researcher at CDE in Myanmar.
Mapping palm oil plantations in Myanmar.
Moderator:
Dr Iwan Gunawan

Senior Natural Resources Specialist, World Bank office in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Discussant:
Mr Arun K Bansal

former-ADG, Forest, Govt of India
Dr Mika Pettri-Torhonen,
Lead Land Administration Specialist at the World Bank
Asia Day Partners
The development of the Asian land tenure system has been part of a long history of struggle for land tenure reforms. Land tenure issues lie at the root of the most perplexing problems that trigger widespread poverty, inequality, and socio-economic discrimination. Recent events in different parts of Asia such as in China, the Philippines, Bangladesh, India, Vietnam, and Myanmar and the threat of upheaval in many troubled spots all combine to force our attention on land tenure and land governance problems in South and Southeast Asia. Can land tenure issues be addressed and resolved equitably and peaceably? Can they be resolved in a manner that would conform to the socio-economic-cultural traditions of differing peoples for a better life? The IDLC 2021 will focus on different challenges to land governance systems, processes and stakeholders. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has put land access and land governance under pressure, and both uncovered and deepened underlying problems. The impact of the global pandemic and the rapid economic decline that occurred since early 2020 play out simultaneously with on-going effects of climate change and persistent food insecurity.
Against the above background, Day 1 of the IDLC 2021 will have eight sessions. These sessions will examine and analyse land governance in South and Southeast Asia with special focus on tenure security and the political economy of land-based sectors. It will discuss the current status of individual land holdings of smallholder farmers, who along with traditional forest dwellers, are among the poorest in the region. A rapidly urbanising Southeast Asia faces shortage of land for housing and infrastructure. Fragile tenure security causes land-related disputes and conflicts. The three sessions will examine whether climate change programmes or REDD+ could help resolve issues on forestland and customary rights. The sessions will also discuss attempts by Southeast Asian governments to modernise land and property rights and strengthen tenure security, include women and disadvantaged groups, and protect indigenous peoples’ land rights. They will also highlight the optimism and desire for change evident in recent government and civil society actions across Southeast Asia.
Professor Philip Hirsch
Emeritus Professor of Human Geography at the University of Sydney, Australia
Dr. Nguyen Quan Tuyen
Associate Professor of Law and Vice Chairman of the Hanoi Law University
Moderator:

MS Shivakumar

Social Activist and Researcher in Southeast and South Asia

Dr. Shekhar Shah
Former NCAER Director General
& World Bank Regional Economic Adviser for South Asia
Reflecting Dr Haque in the Land & Development Linkages of the New Reality

Dr T Haque was the founding Chair of the India Land Development Conference (ILDC), the largest land conference in India and South Asia Established by a collaborative initiative of local and global land-institutions, ILDC promotes inter-sectoral and inter-disciplinary conversations on land and development. ILDC’s audience draws in researchers, practitioners, governments, businesses, entrepreneurs and professionals working on or interested in land related issues. It aims to further, intensify and change land conversations, catalyse cross-learning and amplify innovations. By triggering connections and facilitating networking among land-actors and institutions, ILDC contributes to coordinated and impactful research, innovations, advocacy and actions for improving land tenure security and achieving SDGs. 5th ILDC will be held during Nov 21-25 this year online, with a Asia-Day on 21st Nov and Africa-Day on 26th Nov to promote south-south cross learning around land governance issues, practices and innovations.
Fifth ILDC as an event, is dedicated to the memory of Dr Haque (please read here and here) and will begin the India-focussed deliberation on 22nd Nov 2021 at 10.00 AM IST, with a plenary discussing Professor T Haque’s work and contribution to land governance in India, particularly to discuss how is thinking and legacy are more relevant now in the new Reality.

This session will witness participation of a panel of eminent experts— researchers, land administrators and civil society leaders—who have worked with Dr Haque to share their insights and thoughts, in the context of a post-pandemic world, on Dr Haque’s legacy on land issues as India and the world look for economic revival, for achieving Net-Zero emissions through restoration and nature-based solutions and also in ensuring a hunger-free world through sustainable food systems.
Govind Kelkar
Director of GenDev Centre for Research and Innovation,
Gurgaon, India
Mr. Tim Hanstad
Co founder,
Landesa and CEO,
Chandler Foundation, USA
Dr Arabinda Kumar Padhee
Country Director, ICRISAT
Vinod Kumar Agarwal
IAS (Retd).
Former Special Chief Secretary. Government of Telangana
Session Organizer:

Video of the session
Moderator:
Dr Vincent Darlong
Former Vice Chancellor, MLCU and Centre for Sustainable Development Studies, MLCU, Meghalaya
Mr Pravanjan Mohapatra
Associate Vice President, NRMC (Intellecap Subsidiary)
Co Chair:
Mr Dimgong Rongmei
Secretary, Rongmei Naga Baptist Association (RNBA)-Manipur
Mr Pikato V. Jimo
NEPED, Nagaland
Over the time assured land has remained as a problem at the heart of the indigenous communities. Access to land resources has been progressively eroded through the impact of both endogenous and exogenous factors. With much of the land coming under public control, the indigenous communities have been turned into encroachers on land which they have cultivated for generations but for which they have no title. The problems of the declining access to crop land and common property resources are quite diverse and not unique across India. Lack of access and rights over land resources by indigenous community persistently remained as challenges to access basic services like crop credit, DBT, agricultural inputs, crop insurance etc. In addition, issues like land alienation, involuntary displacement due to development projects and lack of proper rehabilitation, which are still unaddressed and/ or side-lined during framing land policies.

Zooming into India’s Northeast region, the land tenure system is primarily governed by customary laws in the hill areas which is significantly different from the system that is prevalent in the plain areas of the region. The administrative structure to manage customary laws governing land under the Sixth Schedule/ Article 371 of the Indian Constitution are embedded in the democratic structures of the federal Indian state. On the one hand, state policies continue to change, challenge and at times erode the position of the customary bodies. Collective/ community ownership of land and non-transferability of holding rights makes the land unsuitable as collateral for the purpose of securing institutional credit to land holders. This in turn acts as a constraint on extension of institutional credit in the area’s hill economies. In some states, informal private property rights regime over agricultural land has emerged in the region. This transformation in land rights has led to a process of gendered dispossession, where in the women peasants have lost their rights over land. The emergence of informal land-leasing involving migrant tenant households and local landowners has introduced another class of invisible women farmers.

Under the aegis of the Ministry in the North Eastern Region, several numbers of foreign/externally aided development projects are being carried out with focus on infrastructure development, natural resources management, livelihoods improvement, financial inclusion etc. supported by JICA, KFW, IFAD, World Bank etc. While all these projects are intervening around development of land and forest resources, unclear legal and ownership status and diversified customary laws related to land in the region remains as a challenge before the project implementing agencies in designing and implementing appropriate development models that will benefit the poorest including women. This session would primarily explore how do these economic transformations induce the reinterpretation of customary relationships to land and highlight the critical issues and challenges that are being faced due to lack of clear land ownership by the beneficiaries and how they are managing to overcome these challenges in various north-eastern states.

Video of the session
Mr. James Kharkongor
Dy Project Director CLLMP – World Bank, Meghalaya
Mr Mihin Dollo
Director, NERCORMP (IFAD) – Meghalaya, Manipur & Assam
Mr Supongnukshi

IFS
Project Director (HRD), NFMP, Nagaland
Renu Mishra
Executive Director,
Association for Advocacy and Legal Initiatives (AALI)
Chandrakala Sharma
State Co-ordinator,
Ekal Nari Shakti Sangathan,
Rajasthan
Kanchan Sinha
Former Country Director,
Oxfam.
Sailabala Panda
Development Practioner,
PRADAN
Discussant:
Ravi Verma
Director Asia Region, ICRW
Gender Based Violence (GBV) is no less than a pandemic by itself, one that is being ignored for long. It is the result of long-standing, deeply entrenched discriminatory norms that treat gender inequality with permissibility and further embed these inequalities within societal structures and institutions.

Discriminations related to use of and right over land is one of the key conditions that underpins GBV and the same violence is also used – cyclically – to keep women deprived of access and control over land and other assets. Unfortunately, generation after generation, women have lived without the security and the safety that comes from owning assets because of gender discrimination in the law and implementation mechanisms.

Without assets, women face tremendous barriers if they stand up and challenge the violence they and their children face. There are several promising studies that indicate reduced domestic violence with greater land rights, but at the same time there also are other studies which report increased incidence of violence when women assert their land rights. The connections between land and GBV is complex and multi-layered.

In this session we will listen to real life stories of women from the women working with them. These stories will underline the connection of women with land, their struggles to assert their land rights, the violence that they face in accessing justice and the resolve with which they conquer the impediments.

We will then integrate such lived experiences and draw inferences interpolating with the existing evidence. We will talk about the ongoing efforts – in India and globally – to strengthen land rights of women and creating a safe and equitable future for women.
Session Organizer:

Video of the session
Shipra Deo
Director- Women’s Land Rights, Landesa
Shri Rajesh Prabhakar Patil , IAS
Commissioner of Pimpari and Chinchwad Municipal Corporation
Ms. Prerna Singh Bindra
Wildlife Conservationist/ Writer/ Journalist/ Ph.D Scholar
Dr. Ramesh Pratap Singh, IFS
APCCF (Retd.), Consultant and Advisor to Government of Madhya Pradesh
Mr. N. Sunil Kumar
Head, Sustainable Banking India, NatWest Group and Head, NatWest India Foundation
Mr. Sanjib Sarangi
AVP & Head, Natural Resource based Livelihood Programs, Indian Grameen Services
The dialogue would examine some of the experiences and synthesize the learnings on land rights, entitlement and securements of the villagers at the newly relocated areas. However, the experience of R&R of Tiger Reserves in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Odisha would bring insights and foresights on adoption of some of those ground learnings and policy adherence in the R&R happening in various other large infrastructure development projects like construction of dam, airport, power plant, mining and so on.
IGS would bring the diversity of experience and expertise in the panellists who are having hands on working experience in R&R including from the Government, Corporate/Private, Practitioners, Civil Societies, PRI leaders etc.

The thematic session would deliberate and synthesize the various aspects involved in land transfer, rights access, entitlement, tenures and securements, governance etc. during the voluntary relocation processes. The session would spot on some of the constraint and challenges associated with those areas. It also touch upon few critical areas including the villagers psychological trauma, socio-cultural consequences, newer ecosystem to cope up with, blind spots in collaboration and implementation by the ecosystem partners of R&R.

While undertaking the process, whether the policies support the ease of doing and/or making the simpler things complex since the subject is beyond land although land is the critical capital. The causal relationship of associated challenges and positive outcomes would give a broader perspective to ponder!
Session Organizer:

Video of the session
Ms. Bharati Joshi
Managing Director & CEO, Indian Grameen Services
Moderator:
Laura Meggiolaro
Team Leader
Land Portal Foundation
Mr. Kumar Sambhav
Founder, Land Conflict Watch;
Member, The Reporters Collective
Dr. Charu Jain
Associate Fellow,
NCAER
Dr. Charl Thom Bayer
Land Information Management and Advocacy Consultant
Land Portal Foundation
Ms. Shalmoli Halder
Analyst, Investments for Omidyar Network’s Property Rights initiative
This session will examine and take stock of the progress India has made with regards to opening up land data, as well as to consider what progress is needed going forward.

In 2005 India promulgated the Right to Information Act, No. 22 of 2005 and set the stage for the “the right to information for citizens to secure access to information under control of public authorities” in order to improve transparency and accountability. Recognising the value of public data and the benefits that may accrue from reuse of data, there followed the Open Data Policy (NDSAP) in 2012 providing a comprehensive framework and standards for data sharing by government agencies, including in machine readable formats. While the government is to be lauded for this progressive policy stance, the policies have not always been equally supported in practice at the National, State and Local Level according to critics. Driven by the demand for services and technological innovations volunteer organisations have gone on to make important contributions to mapping and provide land related data. Despite these efforts India is ready for innovation to drive development that is not being met by the current rate at which data is being made available.

It has been shown that open land data has a key role to play in not only driving innovations in digital services, but is also a key factor in the resilience of land governance systems, especially as we navigate the impacts of climate change induced global disasters such flooding as well as the COVID-19 pandemic. These disasters exacerbate the land governance challenges such as limited cadastral coverage further complicating land rights and claims resulting in poor access to land and resources by women and youth and the non-recognition of legitimate land rights. These problems are exacerbated by rapid urbanization, systemic corruption and a lack of transparency and accessibility to data. According to the Land Governance Assessment Framework Report on India, it is expected that about 8-16 million hectares of land (representing 5-10% of agricultural land) will be needed for residential land uses by 2030. That amounts to a massive land use change that could undermine food security, increase vulnerability and result in environmental degradation if not managed well. But it also provides an opportunity to address underlying structural issues. In order to do this India will have to ensure enforcement of “interoperable land data systems” for improved policy making that enables “data to be shared by all land institutions” and improve reporting on global land indicators.

Data and its governance are key to assessing and monitoring land governance. Good land governance should be efficient, effective and transparent, ensuring participatory processes and outcomes that are equitable and secure. In order to stem the impact of COVID-19. The climate crisis and intertwined land governance crises, land-related data and information can provide the support needed to monitor key indices, especially those related to progress on the SDGs such as women’s ownership of land or perceptions of tenure security, among others.

In contrast to other global issues, such as climate change, which no single actor can prevent, most land governance issues can be solved within a state. This means that individual governments are in the driver’s seat when it comes to responsible land governance. And this is precisely why the Land Portal Foundation and Open Data Charter joined efforts this year to create an Open Up Guide on Land Governance. The Open Up Guide is the first of its kind playbook for governments with mandates for or an interest in making their land governance data open and available for others to re-use. The Guide outlines key land governance data types, how they may be collected, stored, and published for improving land governance and transparency.

Land ownership data is consistently ranked lowest on both the Global Open Data Index and the Open Data Barometer. Each year this data is highlighted as the least likely to be open. The Open Up Guide on Land Governance is directed at governments because they control most of the land data in the country.

This session will identify the progress that India has made with regards to open land data and how those gains can be protected. The discussion will deliberate on the possible next steps for improving open data access in India. It will examine the role of the Open Up Guide on Land Governance as a tool for opening land-data governance data. Finally, the panel will discuss how such tools can be used to untangle and ameliorate the damage caused by the lack of transparency and corruption fueled by the COVID-19 crisis, and how open land-data governance systems can serve as a tool to fight poverty and ultimately increase food security.
Session Organizer:

Video of the session
Mr. Pranab R Choudhury
Secretary ILDC,
Founder NRMC-CLG
(Intellecap Subsidiary)
Moderator:
Namita Wahi
Founding Director,
Land Rights Initiative Senior Fellow,
Centre for Policy
Prerna Prabhakar
Associate Fellow,
NCAER
Anindita MukherjeeSenior Researcher,Scaling City Institutions for India (SCI-FI),Centre for Policy Research
Discussant:
Ramesh Sharma
National Coordinator,
Ekta Parishad.
Kaveri Haritas
Associate Professor,
Jindal School of Government & Public Policy
Over the last fourteen years, DILRMP has been implemented with varying success, but has formed the base for implementation of subsequent schemes launched by the Central Government or state governments as part of the Digital India Mission. These include the “Survey of Villages Abadi and Mapping with Improvised Technology in Village Areas (SVAMITVA) Scheme” launched in 2020, and AgriStack”, currently being conceptualised. SVAMITVA aims to provide ‘record of rights’ to village household owners possessing houses in inhabited rural areas in villages, and to issue property cards to property owners. Agristack will identify beneficiary farmers on the basis of digitised land records and offer them a range of services intended to increase their incomes. State government initiatives include the “Odisha Liveable Habitats Mission (Jaga Mission)”, which seeks to provide existing slum dwellers with land titles for the land they currently occupy, through drone surveys, spatial mapping using GIS technology, fixing physical boundaries of slums, and publishing the list of slum dwellers who are eligible beneficiaries.

In this panel, we will interrogate the opportunities, challenges, and risks, implicit in the use of technology for land surveys, and for modernising land records within DILRMP, and the deployment of these digitised land records for the three schemes, namely, SVAMITVA, AgriStack and the Jaga Mission identified above. Further, the panelists will evaluate how each of these schemes individually, and all of them collectively, have the potential to minimise or exacerbate land conflict in India, and what implications this might have for India’s economic growth trajectory, and political and social stability.
Session Organizer:

Video of the session
Vrinda Bhardwaj
Research Associate,
Land Rights Initiative,
Centre for Policy Research
Trisha Pande
Research Associate Land Rights Initiative,
Centre for Policy Research
Discussant:
Apar Gupta
Executive Director,
Internet Freedom Foundation
Anchor:
Sanjoy Patnaik
FES
Sibabrata Choudhury
Living Farms
Kavita Sharma
Land Accelerator
N B Brindavanam
Former Head – Bio Resource Divison, Dabur
Manjit Bal
FES
This session would examine and discuss potentials of commons to provide economic opportunities in rural India by presenting experiences from across the country, and groups and practitioners. The session will also deliberate on issues and challenges experienced in turning potentials to opportunities, legal framework, and role of market, and also analyses the extent of changes perceived at the household and village level, especially through women as the key change agent.

Livelihoods and income of close to 350 million rural people are supported by India’s more than 150 million acres of village common lands, pastures, forests, and water bodies. Around 84-100% of the rural poor depend on the Commons for fuel, fodder and food items and. (Jodha, 1982). While poor rural households draw 20-40% of their incomes from Commons, it has been as high as 30 per cent for the landless, 25% for the marginal farmers and 23% for small farmers (FES:2012). Significantly, 30 to 54% family income across central Indian landscape is drawn from forest produce.

Women traditionally constitute the majority of the workforce directly dependent on common lands, forests and water, for which their economic contribution is not recognised or measured. More than half of the country’s livestock are owned by the majority of the small and marginal holders who generate 16% of their income from livestock. It also provides employment to about 8.8 % of the population in India, especially to women for being the largest workforce in Indian agriculture.

Statement of the problem

Policies governing Commons are largely restrictive and still do not recognise commons as critical livelihoods and income generating resource for poor rural household and specifically for women, whose contribution to the economy is not adequately recognised or measured

Commons like land, soil, pastures and water bodies managed and conserved by rural communities as a key contributor to farm sector growth is still not recognised·

For natural resources dependent communities, economic returns from forest produces are still unfairly low, with minimal market presence of locally value added and processed goods, thus value of women’s and other vulnerable groups’ contribution in the economy and right to manage it is ignored in economic planning

Centralised governance with limited role of people’s participation even in constitutionally mandated decentralised institutions restricts growth of economic opportunities for poor communities that can benefit from Commons, especially for women who face multiple levels of exclusions from decision making.

Opportunities

Greater ownership rights to elected Panchayats and Gram Sabhas recognising women’s participation in decision making over community resources, both in scheduled and non-scheduled areas

Growing judicial recognition on restricting diversion of Commons into private control and protecting the rights of women and other marginalised sections

Emerging global recognition on the critical role of women and landless to conserve and manage Commons into the climate mitigation strategies where livelihoods and economic opportunities could integrate with climate change compulsions

Possible areas for deliberation

Policies and programmes to recognise the economic narrative focusing on women as key actors around Commons – ecosystem services, income, food and energy

Design of programmes to ensure economic opportunities achieve hydrological balance to create pasture growth and fodder base for livestock rearing in which local communities have control over decisions related to Commons

Facilitate natural resources dependent communities, particularly women, to access value addition, market access, product development, certification, institution building for collective trading of forest produce including sustainable harvesting

Methods of quantifying value and economic benefits at household level with a gender lens

Reclassification of Commons on the basis of current land use in scheduled V areas, creation or recreation of village commons by constitutionally empowered Gram Panchayats, with decision making role of women collectives like SHGs

Video of the session
Session Organizer:
Chair:
Dr. Nivedita Haran
IAS (Retd) Former-Addl Chief Secretary,
Kerala and Faculty, JNU
Dr Diana Fletschner
Chief Program Officer, Landesa
Ms Everlyne Nairesiae
Coordinator GLII & Gender Lead of Land, GLTN
Prof Bina Agarwal
Development Economist
Global Development Institute, University of Manchester
Jayesh Bhatia
Managing Director, NRMC (Intellecap Subsidiary)
Program Details

1) Pranab R Choudhury : Welcome and Introduction
2) Prof Bina Agarwal: Key Note on ‘Indian women’s land rights, 75 years on’
3) Dr Diana Fletschner : Key Note on “Global Status of WLR and SDG”
4) Ms Everlyne Nairesiae : Remarks on Key Notes with focus on WLR Data Quality and State Capacity
5) Dr Nivedita Haran: Remarks by Chair
6) Jayesh Bhatia : Vote of Thanks
Session Organizer:

Video of the session
Pranab R Choudhury
Secretary ILDC
Founder NRMC-CLG (Intellecap Subsidiary)
Frank Pichel
Chief Programs Officer and Founder Cadasta Foundation
Ranjan Praharaj
Development Practioner, PRADAN
Shishir Dash
Lead Urban Habitat – Tata Trusts
Bhagwan Kesbhat
Founder & CEO · Waatavaran
Ambrish Mehta
Co-Founder, Trustee , Arch Vahini
The session addresses questions on has technology changed the game for land rights documentation in India? How does the use of technology differ based on geography and context within India? How has technology changed the manner in which Civil Society engages with the government? These questions and more will be addressed by this panel. Moderated by Chief Program Officer and co-founder of Cadasta Foundation, leaders from four Indian organizations will discuss the role technology has played to document and secure land rights in their work in both rural and urban contexts. Participants will also discuss the challenges of technology implementation as well as the advantages of having digital and spatial data.
Session Organizer:

Video of the session
Moderator:
Ms Shilpa Vasavda
Independent development professional
Ms Poonam Kathuria
Director, SWATI
Ms Amy Coughenour
CEO,Cadasta Foundation
Ms Rachel McMonagl
Climate Change and Land Tenure Specialist, Landesa
Ms. Karen Pineiro
Research and documentation consultant, SWATI
The fact that COVID-19 and recurring Climate shocks affect all, but impacts women and men differently, with women being impacted disproportionately is not an unknown fact any more. The deeply entrenched inequalities, social norms, and unequal power relations have made women the majority of the world’s impoverished population and more vulnerable to climate shocks, as also worse affected by COVID-19 pandemic. In a rural set up, where land is not just the most critical productive resource, but is also important for food and nutrition security, identity and status; and is a base for resilience against such shocks, the co-occurrence of twin and yet related crisis of climate change and COVID-19 has, made it difficult for people with insecure land rights. Women are one major section of such population, with insecure land rights.
This session will explore the linkage of women’s land rights with COVID-19 and climate change: Have Women’s Land rights been impacted due to COVID-19 pandemic? Can rural women’s secured land rights help in building back better? Can secured Women’s Land Rights help build climate resilience while also lowering the future risk of another pandemic outbreak?
The session will have presentations by SWATI, India; and CADASTA, based on their work in partnership with the National Cooperative Business Association/CLUSA International in Mozambique. These presentations will share insights from India based on study on impact of COVID on WLR; and impact of WLR in the context of climate resilience and women’s empowerment. Linking the presentations will follow a conversation with Climate justice and Land tenure from Landesa, US, on the conceptual link between the two; the global frameworks in the form of different conventions; and sharing of experience of Landesa’s work on connecting WLR and climate change.

Tech 1: SWATI, a grassroots organisation working for women’s rights in Gujarat, India, has conducted a study on impact of COVID-19 on rural women’s land rights. SWATI will present the study findings and make recommendations for future, linking COVID-19 and WLR.

Tech 2: CADASTA, along with World Bank Gender Innovation Lab is involved in conducting an impact evaluation in Mozambique on Women Land Rights and Climate Smart Agriculture, and the impacts of these on women’s livelihoods and empowerment. CADASTA will share insights from this ongoing study, linking WLR and climate change.

Tech 3: The conversation with Climate and Land Tenure expert of Landesa, US, will focus on linking the local experiences to global and deep dive in the conceptual, strategic and practical linkages of WLR with climate change as well as COVID-19. This will be done from multiple dimensions seen from a gender perspective. While global frameworks will be a reference point, the conversation will explore strategies and share experience of Landesa’s work on connecting WLR and climate change.
Session Organizer:

Video of the session
Prof Uchendu

Eugene Chigbu
Associate Professor, Department of Land and Property Sciences / Namibia University of Science and Technology
Jonty Cogger
Attorney I Ndifuna Ukwazi Law Centre
Aparna Das
Senior Technical Expert, GIZ
Helen
Programme Director at DAG – Cape Town
K. P. Krishnan
IEPF Chair Professor in Regulatory Economics
R. Srinivas
Head- Metropolitan and Union Territories Division of TCPO
Deepak Sanan
IAS (Retd.), Senior advisor to NCAER and IIHS and Senior Visiting Fellow at CPR
In India, land titling and tenure issues are regarded as the exclusive domain of the land administration arising from the historical role of the revenue administration in these matters. Pure land administration is about keeping a record of relationships and of interactions between players engaging on land. In practice, land revenue administration often ends up playing the role of a custodian of public lands and is responsible for allocation of public lands for both public and private purposes. As the keeper of land title records and of related transactions, its actions carry a legal imprimatur. Spatial planning, on the other hand, seeks to dictate and mould the relationships and interactions around land, attempting to regulate all land-based development. Spatial planning’s desire to regulate for a more rational allocation of land use can be thwarted if this varied domain of land administration is not in sync with the advocated spatial plans and policies. With these overarching principles in mind, GIZ supported the preparation of a set of documents, which seek to detail the various dimensions of the regime of land administration in three Indian states (Tamil Nadu, Odisha, and Kerala) to bring out the sphere of interaction with spatial planning related policies. It has also facilitated preparation of a training module that can familiarise those dealing with land administration and spatial planning about the areas of interaction and concern in the two fields. The proposed session shall attempt to take the discourse further and explore the possibilities, limitations, and issues for advocating synergies between the land administration and spatial planning departments.
Session Organizer:

Video of the session
Chair:
Shiv Kumar Jolad
Associate Professor – FLAME University
Paper Presenter
Ujjawal Singh
Scholar, School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal
Paper Presenter
Mallika Sarabhai
Scholar, School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal
Session Organizer:

Video of the session
Co- Chair
Aparna Soni
Assistant professor,
Department of Planning,
School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal
Paper Presenter
Arathy S.
Scholar, School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal
Paper Presenter
Laina Alexander
Researcher Namibia University of Science and Technology
Paper Presenter
Sumit Rahangdale
Scholar, School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal

Chair:
Yumnam Jiten
Secretary Centre for Research
and Advocacy, Manipur
Anthony Debbarma
HRD, General Secretary,
Borok Peoples Human Rights Organization (BPHRO)
Mayalmit Lepcha
President
Sikkim Indigenous Lepcha
Tribal Association
Lalremruata Chhakchuak
Gunrei Kamei
Member
Centre for Research
and Advocacy, Manipur
Session Organizer:
Tirtha Saikia
Assistant Professor,
North East Affected Development Society
Bhavana Prasad
Director
Sustainable Business,
WWF-India
As part of its strategy for self-reliance (Atma Nirbhar Bharat), the Government of India launched the National Mission on Edible Oils – Oil Palm (NMEO-OP) in August 2021 to ramp up palm oil production in India, scaling the current 350,000 hectares coverage of oil palm plantations by another 650,000 hectares by 2025-26. According to scientists at the Indian Institute of Oil Palm Research, India consumes over 25 million tons of palm oil every year, of which roughly 10 million tons are produced domestically, and 15 million tons are imported (Majumdar, 2021). Palm oil is used in a vast array of processed food and consumer products due to its cost-effectiveness, and the government seeks to cater to the domestic demand for palm oil by increasing domestic production.

Research on agrarian change in Southeast Asia has demonstrated that oil palm plantations are major drivers of biodiversity loss, deforestation, and water scarcity. The NMEO-OP mission is being rolled out in India even as other countries, such as Sri Lanka and Indonesia, which had converted vast swathes of forest to oil palm plantations, are scaling back production considering its harmful social and ecological externalities. By contrast, Nature-based Solutions such as landscape restoration are gaining recognition as a triple win for people, the environment, and the economy.

This session will discuss the socio-economic and ecological implications of the NMEO-OP’s plans to scale palm oil production in India, especially the Northeast. WRI India’s Restoration Opportunities Atlas shows that the north-eastern states collectively have over 14 million hectares of land available for tree-based restoration interventions, with the potential to additionally sequester between 375.83-392.62 million tons of above-ground carbon by 2040 (Chaturvedi et al., 2018). In the context of northeast India, the area identified for restoration potential would overlap with the area that could be expanded under oil palm plantations. Expansion of oil palm plantations would thereby lead to achieving much less additional above-ground carbon compared to what is estimated through tree-based restoration. The panellists will deliberate on the trade-off between restoring available land and converting it into oil palm plantations—as the area for both practices is essentially the same.

Further, the session will focus on the mission’s impact on livelihoods and nutrition security of forest-dependent communities, and small and marginal farmers. The panellists will deliberate on the impact of large-scale change of land-use on communities that depend on current land-use/land-cover systems for NTFPs and traditional practices such as jhum for nutrition and food security, as well as for several ecosystem services for their livelihoods and cultural identities. They will also discuss the financial and ecological risk of oil palm plantations for small and marginal farmers given their long gestation period and non-native nature. These issues will be discussed in the broader context of India’s various international commitments under the Bonn Challenge, Nationally Determined Contributions, Sustainable Development Goals, etc. for combatting climate change and preserving biodiversity, as well as its commitment to improving farmer incomes.

The panel will consist of experts from research organizations, representatives from civil society organizations working on palm oil, and practitioners.
Moderator:
Jayahari K.M
FOLU India Country Co-ordinator
World Resources Institute India
Babu Thomas
Managing Director
Oil Palm India Ltd
Session Organizer:
Kamal Prakash Seth
Country Head – India
Global Deputy Director –
Market Transformation
Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil.
Joanna Dawson
Balipara Foundation
Amba Jamir
Director, Sustainable Development Forum, Nagaland and vice president of Integrated Mountain initiative, Nagaland
Ruchika Singh
Director – Sustainable Landscapes and Restoration, WRI India

Video of the session
Omokolade Akinsomi
Associate Professor,
University of the Witwatersrand
Anil Kashyap
Director General
NICMAR, Pune
Reema Bali
Associate Director Programmes,
School of Real Estate and Infrastructure,
RICS School of Built Environment,
Amity University, Noida
Ratoola Kundu
Assistant Professor,
Centre for Urban Policy and Governance,TISS-Mumbai
Prashant Das
Associate Professor of Real Estate Finance at the
Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA)
Triveni Prasad Nanda
Assistant Professor,
RICS School of Built Environment, Amity University
Video of the session

Aparna Soni
Assistant professor,
Department of Planning,
School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal
Bhuvaneswari Raman
Researcher, Architect, Urban plannner
Deo Shankar Tripathi
Managing Director & Chief Executive, Aadhar Housing Finance Ltd. Officer
This session is designed to present research-work that examines important questions about land and access to finance. It includes a panel discussion with experts from the field.

Land plays a dual role of being both (i) an asset for wealth creation and access to finance for households and also (ii) a tool for providing tenure security and homestead to vulnerable households. In the first instance, land is often viewed as an important factor in enabling access to credit by households because it is an ideal collateral given that can by easily identified and its value appreciates over time. While land constitutes a large portion of the household asset portfolio, the formal mortgage penetration in the country is low.[1] Despite having a high proportion of land-based assets, households are continuing to rely on informal lending.[2] This is not desirable and requires a deeper analysis of why this is the case. Schemes such as the Survey of Villages and Mapping with Improvised Technology in Village Areas (SVATMITVA) and Digital India Land Record Modernisation Programme (DI-LRMP) are gaining impetus as they are perceived to aid in better access to household credit by improving land records and titles. But are they in fact improving access to credit on-ground?

The second function of land is to provide a base for adequate supply of housing and homestead for vulnerable households. A paradox in the housing market is that one hand there is a housing shortage and on the other hand there is a build up of vacant houses. A key reason for this is the lack of affordable housing. It is estimated that nineteen million households are affected by housing shortage.[3] Government schemes such as the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana(PMAY) and the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) as designed to increase the supply of affordable housing. However, a major stumbling block has been the access to finance for completion of such projects. In November 2019, the central government launched the Special Window for Funding Stalled Affordable and Middle-Income Housing Projects (SWAMIH)scheme aimed at providing priority debt financing for completion of stalled housing projects in the affordable and middle-income category. The role of land in finance once again takes centre-stage as these unfinished projects become collateral for lending by banks.

There is, therefore, an interlinkage of the role of land – it can be for access to finance not only by households but also builders of affordable housing projects which will in-turn provide housing for vulnerable households and enable them to use their finished house as asset to access to finance.

Therefore, questions such as: how can land be used to access finance? What should be the role of the state in ensuring better access using land as collateral? Are current land schemes to increase access to formal finance working? Are these the right interventions or should we be thinking about interventions through a different lens? What are the risks to lenders in lending against collateral in the current landscape of poor titles and records? are of utmost importance.
Lara Shankar Chandra
Director- Strategy, Advocacy & Partnerships
Habitat for Humanity India
Sudha Narayanan
Research Fellow, IFPRI

Video of the session
Diya Uday
Research Lead, xKDR Forum
Joseph Sebastian
Associate, Investments omidyarnetwork
Manoj Vishwanathan
MD and CEO, Home First Finance Co. India Ltd.
Manindar Juneja
Retail Business Head at ICICI Bank
Prerna Prabhakar
Associate Fellow at NCAER
Indian courts are clogged with cases pertaining to land. Land-related disputes in India account for about 60 to 70 per cent of all civil litigation. About 25 percent of all cases decided by the Supreme Court involve land disputes, of which 30 per cent concern disputes relating to land acquisition (Wahi, 2019 1 ). Inaccurate land records in the country further worsens the situation. According to a pilot impact assessment of the GoI’s Digital India Land Records Modernisation Programme (DILRMP), a wide
divergence was observed between the on ground situation and the written land records, reflecting both a lack of comprehensiveness and accuracy in the land records (NCAER, 2017 2 ).
Digitization is an important step towards land record management as it reduces the time and cost involved in updating records and also limits the possibility of inadvertent human errors. Digitization of land record related services can also ensure e-linkages of relevant departments and hence facilitate multi stage and inter departmental processes like registration, mutation etc. However, digitization of land records alone cannot ensure an efficient system of land record management and has to be accompanied by accuracy of land records that are consistent with ground reality.
Against this backdrop, the NCAER Land Records and Services Index (N-LRSI) released in February 2020 provided an assessment of the extent of digitization and quality of land records in Indian States/UTs. N-LRSI is based on publicly available information on land records. Till date, two editions of N-LRSI have been released – N-LRSI 2020 and N-LRSI 2021 3 . Between the two editions, the overall N-LRSI score, reflecting the extent of digitisation and quality of land record increased by 16.6 per cent at the national level, reflecting state level efforts in this direction, despite the fact that during the year 2020
nearly all the economic activities in the country were hard hit by the Covid 19 pandemic. Another significant fact that became evident is that these improvements in 2021 were driven by states’ own funds, and did not use the allocations under the central program. The need for improving land administration services appears to have become a policy priority. While expanding and improving the quality of land records reflects the efforts on the supply side of these services, how are they perceived and used by the users? To address this question, it was felt that a demand side component be added to the index. This could assess to what extent households are actually aware of, use and value digitised land records. Another dimension of rights of property strengthened by improvement in the land records and related services of the government is the perception of the citizens of the security of their rights in property. Do the improvements in land records and services lead to perceptions of greater security of property rights, leading to positive impact on investments in property that enhance its value and productivity? An
the opportunity to examine these two related aspects has been presented by the integration of the ‘demand side survey’ of N-LRSI with the survey of perceptions of security of property rights in India as part of the Prindex India Survey. ‘Prindex’ is a globally comparable measure of perceived tenure security. The most

recent version is based on nationally representative surveys in 140 countries of individual respondents randomly selected from within a household, including women and young adults carried out in 2017. The Global Land Alliance (GLA) carried out the first worldwide Prindex survey in 2016 in which India was also included. The survey had 14,000 respondents in 14 Indian States to evaluate the situation in India. Later India was a test case in a three-country methodological study during 2017 to identify the best way to measure tenure security and to validate earlier results. This involved a larger sample of about 16,475 respondents in 24 Indian States and Union Territories. Learning from the global experience and more specifically experience of Prindex surveys in India, it is now proposed to carry out an integrated sample survey of households addressing both the demand side perspectives on land records and perceptions of security of land and housing property rights. The combination of LRSI and Prindex will open up opportunities for rigorous study of the inter linkages between formal tenure and subjective perception of its security. It will also allow assessing the differences in awareness about formal tenure status and related rights, allocation of assets within the household, rights to them and their productive use, participation in off-household productive activities and linkages across housing and land markets. This may be particularly relevant for rural and peri-urban markets where the separation between housing and land markets is greater than in urban markets. To meet the objectives of the proposed study, a primary survey will be conducted spanning 25 Indian States/UTs, covering 15,800 households. After a number of iterations and review by experts, sampling strategy and questionnaire in this regard have been drafted.
Besides this sample survey, covering both rural and urban households, the research program supported by separate grants to NCAER and ODI from Omidyar Network India will also include a case study of the impact of digital land records on the perception of security of rights and a study of state laws relating to transactions in land.

This proposed ILDC session aims to discuss the comparison between supply side NLRSI 2020 and 2021. The session will then delve into the broad objectives of NLRSI-Prindex India study, with specific focus on various aspects of property rights and land records that will be covered under this study and the potential implications to policies related to property rights in India.
Moderator:
Dr K P Krishnan
IEPF Chair Professor in Regulatory Economics
Anna Locke
Director of ODI’s Sustainable Environments and Societies programme
Session Organizer:

Video of the session
Deepak Sanan
IAS (Retd.), Senior advisor to NCAER and IIHS and Senior Visiting Fellow at CPR
Annindya Banerjee
National Legal Head -Retail Lending at HDFC Limited
Chockalingam S
Director General, Yashwantrao Chavan Academy of Development Administration (YASHADA)
Council Dickson (CD) Langoya
Forestry resources, environmental and natural resources planning and management specialist
Governments are increasingly devolving forest tenure rights to smallholders and recognizing tree rights of farmers on agricultural lands. Many governments are also incentivizing smallholders to grow trees to help meet domestic needs of wood and wood products. Despite this, smallholders around the world are challenged by numerous barriers that prevent them from generating incomes from these rights or in contributing substantially to national wood-based economies. The Government of India MoEFCC is currently making efforts to enhance the cultivation of trees outside of forests and strengthen the sustainable production of wood and wood products from agricultural lands and in the process operationalizing the 2014 Agroforestry Policy. However, some studies show that private forest owners and farmers in India continue to have weak incentives to grow trees. What are the legal and regulatory challenges faced by smallholders in India? What are some of the critical institutional challenges faced by smallholders in country? What can we learn from countries that has successfully scaled up and strengthened smallholder forestry in their countries and is now meeting significant domestic demand for wood and wood products? This session will respond to these questions and bring experiences from China, Sweden, Uganda and India to inform the discussions.
Lennart Ackzell
Senior Advisor for International Affairs , Federation of Swedish Farmers (LRF)
Parthiban K.T
Dean
Tamil Nadu Agricultural University
Session Organizer:

Videos
Jintao Xu
Professor, National School of Development at Peking University
Safia Aggarwal
Forestry Officer · FAO
Ruchika Singh
Director – Sustainable Landscapes and Restoration, WRI India
Pranab R Choudhury
Secretary ILDC
Founder NRMC-CLG (Intellecap Subsidiary)
Chair:
Shri.B. K. Agarwal IAS
Secretary Lokpal of India, Government of India
Paper Presenter
Mrs.Rachanadevi Vaishnav
Paper Presenter
Dr Mizinksa Daimari
Session Organizer:

Videos
Paper Presenter
Dr.Girija Godbole
Paper Presenter
Dr. Samhita Barooah
Judge
Triveni Prasad Nanda
Assistant Professor,
RICS School of Built Environment, Amity University
The policy-athon is a platform to conflate our youth’s perceptive, innovative minds with issues of urban land governance and development through a Rights-based, Livelihood-based, and Technology-based approach. This is a quest to enable the young citizens to voice their policy solutions, and facilitate greater practicality, innovativeness, and nuance in public discourse.

Undergraduate and graduate students from all over India are invited to research, design, and present their proposals in this three-round competition. The first stage involves the submission of a one-page research document, identifying an urban land governance issue, and drafting a brief solution for the same. During the second round, the selected proposals will get the opportunity to refine their policy solution through the help of mentorship by young academic achievers and changemakers assigned to them. In the third round, a panel of expert judges will evaluate the proposals in real-time and give actionable feedback in the plenary session.

With the intent to foster the interest of youth in mitigating urban land issues, The Policyathon is a great way for students to gain hands-on experience in the policy-making arena outside the classroom. The platform has put in place a mentorship and feedback mechanism, along with an opportunity to pitch and present proposals for better urban governance.
Mentor:
Harshal Gajjar
External Consultant with the Indian Institute for Human Settlements, Delhi
Mentor:
Swapnil Saxena
External Urban Development Practitioner
Session Organizer:

Videos
Archana M.L
Intern-City Speaks
Mentor:
Anagha Jaipal
Research Officer Housing and Land Rights Network
Mentor:
Lakshmi Jahnavi Ph.D. Research Scholar Land Conflicts
Mentor:
Vidhulekha Tiwari
Ph.D. Research Scholar, Center for Urban Sciences and Engineering
Mentor:
Sukrit Nagpal Team Lead for the land rights vertical, SEWA Bharat
Paper Presenter:
Soormit Chattopadhyay
Paper Presenter:
Meghna Menon
Paper Presenter:
Aprita Victor
Paper Presenter:
Aarushi De
Paper Presenter:
Deepannita Misra
Paper Presenter:
Ngugi Moses
Paper Presenter:
Sharbani Chattoraj
Paper Presenter:
Parnika Ray
Videos
Malcolm Childress
Global Land Alliance
This session will discuss the Status of monitoring of land ownership in general in India and of relevant SDG indicators (viz. 1.4.2, 5 a 1a) in particular in India, connecting it to global experiences around the role of National Statistical and alternative reporting. This conversation intends to also focus on the role of Central Statistical Organisation and how that can be advanced in India.It would bring in global experiences around how countries are gearing up to SDG land indicators reporting through building capacity of CSO as well as through use of alternative data like PRIndex.
Dalip Singh
DDG(AC), Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare
Session Organizer:
Ward Anseeuw
Researcher
International Land Coalition
LANDex
Chair:
Shivani Gupta
Programme Director – India
Womanity Foundation
Land ownership is broadly determined by having a land title, which protects the rights of the title-holder, and impacts livelihoods, and industrial, economic, and social growth. Although, land records have been digitized in India under Digital India Land Record Management Program (DILRMP), it lacks a gender column thereby not providing gender segregated data on land ownership. With increasing feminization of agriculture in India, adding women’s name in land records is imperative.

In the contemporary land administration, an entry point towards tenure security, is the name in the legitimate land records or quasi-legal documents. It may not automatically lead to access and control in a patriarchal society, but documented land tenure/rights definitely add a legitimate confidence and opens up windows to public services entitlements and market interests. This could enhance women’s access to formal credit, insurance, caste certificate, farm subsidies, Direct Benefit Transfer and Minimum Support Price etc. which are now increasingly connected to digital land records. Adding women’s name in the land records, as existing laws provision, has transformative impact. When added in land records in scale in a populous country like India with speed, the needle towards equality SDG goals, globally, can move faster. Making digital land records sex-disaggregated can make SDG monitoring and reporting easier, seamless and in real time, while providing insights to local policy and practice

The proposed panel for ILDC 2021, aims to engage in conversations based on legal provisions, institutional innovations and technology pathways that can add women’s names in land records/documents at scale with speed, that open up avenues for economic freedom for women.

The session would deliberate on the experience, impact and challenges around following technology and institutional pathways, as potential low hanging fruits and examine their scaling prospects

Tech 1: In a partnership with the Land Revenue Department in West Bengal to provide land literacy training, Landesa, assisted the State Rural Livelihoods Mission to enhance women SHG member’s access to land related services and entitlements wherein trained leaders could digitally interact with the State portal to update their land records through a mobile application.

Tech 2: This RNBA project trained local youth to use a mobile phone to map and document long-term (viz. Horti/Agroforestry) land-use rights with concurrence from local communities resulting in traditional (legitimate) village authorities issuing Land Tenure Certificates with joint title (including women’s names), spatial details, and documentation of customary norms. The process involved local and customary institutions and was shared with state-level actors, including members of autonomous district councils (ADC), clan leaders, and Government officials. The resultant document enhanced rights and dignity of women, economic activities and opened windows to public services entitlements.

Inst 1: The Working Group of Women for Land Ownership (WGWLO), by building the capacity of its own network members and land administration officials, provides appropriate legal and institutional support in the form of para-legal workers in Legal Clinics (Swabhoomi Kendras) to add wife/daughter’s name in land records while also linking them to farm-support services for sustainable farming.
Pinaki Haldar
National Director of Programs, Landesa – India
Kinjal Pillai
WGWLO
empowerment in India

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Akeina Gonmei
Development Secretary
Rongmei Baptist Association (RNBA)
Arshia Gupta
Agriculture Analyst, South Asia Region, The World Bank
Session Organizer:
Pranab R Choudhury
Secretary ILDC
Founder NRMC-CLG (Intellecap Subsidiary)
Mr Girish Kandambeth
Landryt
Ms Shraddha Joshi
MD, MAVIM
Anchor:
Sanjoy Patnaik
FES
The session would highlight the development of legal processes around Commons and key judicial pronouncements across the country to protect and conserve Commons. It would discuss and analyse the processes through which progressive judicial actions have been integrated into state laws and the areas needing legal and administrative attention.
The deliberations would also focus on the critical role played by Indian judiciary in protecting the interests for those seeking justice and holding the legislature and executive to account. For Commons, this manifested into the watershed judgment of Jagpal Singh versus State of Punjab (2011), wherein the Indian Supreme Court took cognizance of the historical and socio-cultural significance of Commons and the urgency of protecting such Commons.
The natural heritage of the planet serves as an economic resource earmarked for common use and convenience, with or without recorded rights for communities that conserve and manage them. These Commons, including land, pastures, soil, forests and water, maintain ecological balance, and constitute about one-fourth of India’s total land – land that rural communities can access and use for their basic needs of food, water and livelihoods. These resources are critical to life and livelihood for tribals, other forest dwellers, landless and pastoralist households; particularly women for being the first and the natural conservationists.
Commons as a collective of shared natural resources for common good and public service with a defined community ownership framework has received limited attention by policy makers. Common lands not being ‘cultivable’ could hardly fetch any revenue, therefore, became ‘revenue wastelands’ for colonial masters. Though it was inaccurate to define such massive tracts of land as ‘wastelands’ just on the basis of the revenue returns, this ‘wasteland approach ‘continued to reflect in policies even after independence.
Hagar ElDidi
Research Analyst,
International Food Policy Research Institute
Kanchi Kohli
Senior Researcher,
Centre for Policy Research
Session Organizer:

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Pooja Chandran
Advocate,
Senior Project Manager-FES
Mukta Joshi
Advocate,
Legal Associate –
Land Conflict Watch
Vaishnavi Rathore
The Bastion
Prudhviraj Rupavath
Land Conflict Watch
Grace Jajo
Journalist , Manipur
Session Organizer:

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Rina Chandran
Thomson Reuters Foundation
Nitin Sethi
Partner and Editorial Advisor, Land Conflict Watch and
Media Lead National Foundation of India
Anchor
Ishan Agarwal
FES
Steven Lawry
CIFOR
Sandeep Roy Choudhury
Director and Co-Founder,
VNV Advisory and Services
Session Organizer:

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Sanchyan Chakraborty
Partner, Aaviskaar Capital
Christy Wiliams
IFPRI
This session would highlight the ways in which the processes related to ecosystem services can be made favourable to natural resources dependent communities that are the natural stewards of biodiversity while ensuring. The session will also deliberate global payment process – issues and challenges, and carbon markets in India.

There are divergent views about Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) markets, carbon credit markets included, and their utility in delivering benefits to local communities based on the distinctive environmental and ecological economic perspectives prevailing among scientists, planners and civil society organizations.

Needed is greater knowledge by all potential stakeholders, including but not limited to communities, potential investors, governments, financial institutions, and India’s NGO community on the environmental, social and economic value and feasibility (institutionally and operationally) of Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) and carbon markets in fostering better conservation practices, resource management and social outcomes. Private investors and markets have much to learn from communities about, and vice versa!

Communities that have realized the significance of their natural heritage, and have invested in conservation are realizing benefits already, in the form of family food security and income, agricultural productivity, cleaner and more reliable water supplies, reduced erosion and healthier soils, and better grazing lands. Communities, particularly women as the natural stewards of nature, and local governments may be aware of these ‘local’ benefits, but likely less aware of how their actions, practices and investments have contributed to better environmental outcomes beyond their villages, districts and ecosystems. Moreover, despite the stewardship of communities, with a major contribution of women towards the conservation of natural resources, the tenurial systems and laws seldom recognise the benefits of community and women-led conservation flowing out to the global good.

This begs the big questions: How can communities be recognised, encouraged, rewarded and compensated more fully for their investments of indigenous wisdom, effort and collectives action that lead to universal material environmental gains? What can be the institutional arrangements through which the decisions of women regarding conservation of their natural heritage get integrated into the policy and economic instruments that decide the fate on an ecosystem?
Sh. Vivek Kumar Singh
Additional Chief Secretary, Revenue and Land (Bihar)
Sh. Raveesh Gupta
Collector and DM Sultanpur (UP)
Sh. Kaustubh Diwegaonkar
Collector and DM, Osmanabad (Maharashtra)
Session Organizer:

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Sh. Shekhar Gaikward
Sugar Commissioner, Maharashtra
Sh. Aman Mittal
Municipal Commissioner, Latur (Maharashtra)
Sh. Divyanshu Patel
Chief Development Officer, Unnao (UP)
Dr. Yugank Goyal
Associate Professor
FLAME University
As the Indian economy moves from agriculture to service oriented employments, the distinctions between urban and rural regions is diluting considerably. The urban sprawl is slowly engulfing villages, while rural hinterlands are increasingly being characterized by non-agricultural enterprises (Gupta 2015, Singh and Rahman 2017, Kolhe and Dhote 2017). If one takes occupations alone, many villages will barely qualify as rural (Chatterjee 2015). The classical categorical separation between urban and rural is indeed fading away.

Regardless of the clumsiness inherent in this concept, it is indeed a transformative transition taking place across the country (Bearak 2013). This new type of settlement is called rurban, where rural and urban activities diffuse. The rurban centers are those regions which exhibit urban features, and are yet governed by rural local bodies (panchayats). This would mean that they receive benefits from state-funded rural development programs and even exempt from property taxes, for instance.

Think about Census Towns (CT), with a minimum population of 5,000 and density of 400 people per sq. km., and where at least 75% population is not engaged in agriculture. Between 2001 and 2011, the CTs increased from 1,362 to 3,894, a rise of almost 200%. Estimates suggest that almost 80-140 million people today live in these ‘grey-zone’ settlements, lying between smallest towns and largest villages, with both urban-rural characteristics alloyed.

This rapid transformation is naturally attracting significant policy interventions. For instance, in 2016, the Shyama Prasad Mukherji Rurban Mission with an outlay of Rs. 5,142.08 crores was launched by the PM. The Rurban Mission aims to bring urban amenities to rural India by building 300 rural growth clusters across the country to attract investment, infrastructure and development to these areas (Ministry of Rural Development 2017, Bhagat 2017). While the aims appear laudable, there are a number of design gaps, as well as (philosophically speaking), an underlying, unquestioned assumption that development-is-urban (Reddy and Mishra 2010, Singh and Rahman, 2017, Gupta 2015, Shaw 2013).

But real issues lie deeper. Local district level administration have to increasingly cater to these rurban areas, with diverse sets of challenges. Often, bureaucrats have to work on quantifiable outcomes even though the real issues are qualitative, process-driven that interplay with lives of people and their aspirations (Shaw and Das 2017, Singh and Rahman 2017, Singh et al 2016,). The socio-economic conflict in this transition is not linear, nor can it be homogenized in universal categories. The distinctiveness of each region calls for customized understanding of the problem. Indeed, perhaps even before the solutions, we need to acknowledge and recognize the host of complex issues at hand.

Unfortunately, despite the sizable impact the transition is having in land relations, there is little scholarly research on the issue. The Panel attempts to enrich the discourse by bringing in government bureaucrats who have to deal with these issues regularly. This marks a fresh departure in the conversation, and instead of understanding scholarly viewpoints, we dwell upon these issues experientially. The panelists will throw open a range of questions that ought to be considered as we witness these transformational transitions in rurban spaces in India. We will engage and discuss potential issues that need to be kept in mind as the policy implementation moves forward. In many ways, we advance an agenda for research in this area. While the focus will be experience in select states, lessons drawn will indicate the direction in which scholarly and practitioners’ thinking may evolve further.
Charl-Thom Bayer
Land Information Management and Advocacy, Consultant,
Land Portal Foundation
Apar Gupta
Executive Director,
Internet Freedom Foundation
Christine Richter
Research Fellow, Fraunhofer Center for International Management and Knowledge Economy (IMW)
Session Organizer:

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Malarvizhi Veerappan
Senior Data Scientist,
The World Bank
Kumar Sambhav
Founder, Land Conflict Watch and Member, The Reporters Collective
and Ethical Imperatives
This session will examine the conflict between the need for open data and the right to privacy.

The amount of data and information that is publicly available is unprecedented in history, and this is only going to increase. This level of access to information has often resulted in more transparency and accountability in many countries while driving digital innovations and services. Access to information, especially spatial information also forces us to confront, sometimes uncomfortable, compromises between the right to privacy and the ethical deployment of open data. Increasingly data has come to be seen as a public good and a necessary public infrastructure, much as one considers the energy infrastructure as a public good. Not only does geospatial data enable the tracking of locations, geospatially referenced imagery allows for near real time identification of individuals. However geo-spatial data and georeferenced imagery form part of the core land related datasets required for improved land and environmental management and land rights protections, especially for women, the youth and the most vulnerable. This is also the data about which governments tend to be more guarded. In addition, advocates of open data must also contend with copyright legislation, which, (while the fundamental principles remain valid), often has been argued as being outdated, inappropriate, inequitable or downright harmful and not supportive of innovation.

The question therefore that open data advocates must contend with, is on the one hand, how to manage the public goods aspect of open land data systems that promote innovations in digital services, but is also a key factor in the resilience of land governance systems, especially as we navigate the impacts of climate change induced global disasters such flooding as well as the COVID-19 pandemic? On the other hand, what assurances must open data systems provide, to reassure the and maintain public confidence that privacy considerations are protected and that data will be used ethically and in support of inclusive economic development as well as support for social and economic protections for the most vulnerable?

India promulgated the Right to Information Act, No. 22 of 2005 and the Open Data Policy (NDSAP) in 2012 set the stage for the “the right to information for citizens to secure access to information under control of public authorities” and provides a comprehensive framework and standards for data sharing by government agencies. Critics have argued that digital innovation and economic development have been stifled due to the inability to access spatial data, despite the efforts of a multitude of volunteer mapping and data organizations taking up the challenge of providing open data.

The Land Portal Foundation and Open Data Charter joined efforts this year to create an Open Up Guide on Land Governance. The Open Up Guide is the first of its kind and serves as a playbook for governments with mandates for and an interest in making their land governance data open and available for others to re-use. The Guide outlines key land governance data types, how they may be collected, stored, and published for improving land governance and transparency while at the same time ensuring an ethical approach to open data systems. The Open Up Guide is being considered for implementation in Senegal and Madagascar and will surely reveal more about the strengths and limitations of the tool.

This session will interrogate the seemingly contrasting desire for more open data systems and increasing concerns regarding ethics and privacy. This discussion will examine the two propositions through the lens of the Open Data developments in India and will deliberate on the ethics and privacy concerns of the Open Up Guide as a tool for promoting ethical and equitable open land data systems.
Chair:
Narayana A
Associate Professor
School of Public policy and Governance, Azim Premji University
Arushi Bhasin
Student, FLAME University
Mario Siukuta
Researcher Department of Land and Property Sciences, Namibia University of Science and Technology
Session Organizer:

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Co-Chair:
Prasad Pathak
Associate Professor, Flame University
Khushi Rajpuria
Student, FLAME University
Arpit Sachan
Ntwala Vanessa Simataa
Researcher, Namibia University of Science and Technology

Harshal Gajjar
External Consultant (Indian Institute for Human Settlements, Delhi )
Swapnil Saxena
Urban Development Practitioner
Anagha Jaipal
Research Officer,
Housing and Land Rights Network
Lakshmi Jahnavi
Ph.D. Research Scholar (Land conflicts)
Vidhulekha Tiwari
Ph.D. Research Scholar, Center for Urban Sciences and Engineering
Session Organizer:
Sukrit Nagpal
Team Lead for the land rights vertical (SEWA Bharat)
Moderator:
Shambhavi Gupta
Professional Planner & Researcher at School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi
Videos

With rising urban population and its tailing,bleak consequences,discussions that ideate on efficient,inclusive and sustainable urban land governance systems is imperative.There is a need to identify a nexus between various ideas of ‘urban development’ and the Sustainable Development Goals.

India Land and Development Conference 2021 in collaboration with CitySpeaks, through its Youth and Land Track, advocate for land security for peace and resilience .Realising the importance of youth representation and participation in the arena of urban land governance, we are organising a panel discussion on the theme- “How can youth mitigate the issues of urban land governance?”.

The discussion brings in young professionals working on land governance ,so as to enable a platform which is accomodative of diverse perspectives regarding the challenges faced by youth in the development space.Packed with a rich discussion in urban land governance and development followed by interactive sessions for participants, the discussion will lay down strategies for more youth engagement in sustainable development and land governance.
Govind Kelkar
Director of GenDev Centre for Research and Innovation,
Gurgaon, India
Beth Roberts
Director, Center for Women’s Land Rights, Landesa
Nitya Rao
Professor of Gender & Development School of International Development, University of East
Session Organizer:
Reema Nanavaty
General Secretary, SEWA
Moderator:
Usha Ramanathan
Editor, South Asia LEAD Journal
Shipra Deo
Director- Women’s Land Rights, Landesa

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Taruna Jakhar
Assistant Professor,
Institute of Law,
Nirma University
Soma K Parthsarathy
Policy analyst,
Researcher & Advisor, Gender,
Sustainable Development and Livelihoods
Chockalingam S
Director General, Yashwantrao Chavan Academy of Development Administration (YASHADA)
Session Organizer:
Neema Pathak Broome
Coordinator Conservation and Livelihoods Programme at Kalpavriksh Environment Action Group
Moderator:
Varsha Ganguly
Professor,
Nirma University
Videos

This roundtable aims at expanding the discourse on DEVELOPMENT and LAND, and attempts to understand DEVELOPMENT from the lenses of LAND, elaborating the shifts in development paradigm and changes in meanings of LAND.

The presentations cover different meanings of LAND representing concerns of different stakeholder’s, i.e., the State, indigenous people, women, and land consumers – holders and dependents. Different types of LAND and its uses are covered in the session to show varied meanings and changes in the meaning of LAND over the time, with shifts in DEVELOPMENT paradigms.

The first presentation focuses on ‘land as a property’. This presentation covers how Indian Constitution has conceived LAND, and presenting how land’s codification through Constitutional amendments, laws, and judicial verdicts have contributed to
changes in meaning of land as a property. Based on these expressions and interpretations, the presentation will showcase zigzag changes in the meaning of the LAND.

The second presentation covers ‘land and biodiversity based rights to land/natural resources’, worldview of indigenous people and how land is part of their lifestyle, critique of Indian government’s conservation policies, and raising questions about decision-making on land and water.

Third presenter will critically look at land-use planning and land governance. He will take a stock of land records and ground realities by referring to maps and records and identifying gaps in ownership, possession, boundaries and area, and nature’s imprints. Further, the presenter will explain about land-use planning, which is based on maps and records that do not provide required details except planning related to afforestation, and how they become reasons for not considering preservation of Rivers, Streams, etc. in the land-use planning and land governance.

Fourth presentation will keep how women conceive and construe land at the centre. While focusing on livelihood concerns of women, the presenter will refer to forest and common/public lands, and based on work experience/research, she will share changes/differences in meaning of land that are observed between two generations.
Moderator:
Nagesh Kumar
Director, Institute for Studies in Industrial Development
The Special Economic Zones (SEZs) are policy-led industrial agglomerations that have been established in different countries around the world. SEZs have contributed significantly to industrial and economic development in many countries by helping to attract export-oriented investments from global and domestic investors. The UNCTAD’s World Investment Report (2019) has documented the role that SEZs have played in attracting investments, leveraging the global value chains (GVCs), boosting exports, creating job opportunities, and promoting economic development of the host countries.

India’s experience with SEZs, however, has not been impressive in terms of fostering industrial development, job creation and economic growth. Although the number of SEZs notified in various states increased manifolds, since the implementation of the SEZ Act 2005, it did not translate into a corresponding growth of economic activities thus leaving over half of the land acquired under the SEZ Act remaining unutilized till 2014. Therefore, the implementation of the SEZ scheme in India needs to be analyzed and discussed to bring out the policy lessons for reforms. The issues that need to be discussed among stakeholders include those relating to land acquisition, regional disparities, labour, environmental factors, tax treatment, attractiveness to FDI, among others.

At this Special Session organized in the context of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, ISID seeks to provide a forum for debate among academics, policy makers and zone operators, and private sector representatives to analyze the challenges that Indian SEZs have faced and the measures that can be taken by the government and other stakeholders to fully exploit their potential. The key questions that would be addressed by the Session include:

What role have the SEZs played in India’s industrial and economic growth since their inception?

What are the challenges for the future industrial growth through SEZs and industrial corridors?

What are the key lessons from success stories in other countries?

What are the key policy lessons for India’s SEZ Policy for achieving greater success

Tentative Programme

Moderator: Prof. Nagesh Kumar, Director, Institute for Studies in Industrial Development

Presentation (30 minutes):

Prof. Aradhna Agarwal, Professor, Department of International economics, Government and Business, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark

Panelists (10 minutes each):

Mr Srikanth Badiga, Vice President, Export Promotion Council of Export-Oriented Units and SEZs (EPCES) and Director, Phoenix Group

Mr. Bipin Menon, Development Commissioner, NOIDA SEZ

Dr. Malini Tantri, Assistant Professor, Institute for Social and Economic Change

Open discussion

Wrap up

Convener: Dr. Ramaa Arun Kumar, Assistant Professor, Institute for Studies in Industrial Development (ISID)
Srikanth Badiga
Vice President, Export Promotion Council of Export-Oriented Units and SEZs (EPCES) and Director, Phoenix Group
Bipin Menon
Development Commissioner, NOIDA SEZ
Session Organizer:

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Aradhna Agarwal
Professor, Department of International Economics, Government and Business, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
Malini Tantri
Assistant Professor, Institute for Social and Economic Change
Ramaa Arun Kumar
Assistant Professor, Institute for Studies in Industrial Development (ISID)
Lokho Puni (IFS., Retd)
Former PCCF, Govt. of Manipur
This session will focus on land tenure and governance in the state of Manipur an initiatives by RNBA Network.

Equitable access to land, inclusive land governance and land tenure clarity and security are central yet often neglected aspect of rural development and rural poverty reduction. Land is one of the most important assets that poor rural women and men have. For indigenous communities, land is the cultural identity. Those with limited or no access to land and natural resources tend to be the poorest members of the community. Land tenure impacts on decisions regarding land use and the level of investment in land, it determines how benefits from agricultural and other land-related economic activities are divided and it can also impact on people’s ability to access financial services. Land tenure insecurity and land related historical injustice have been major contributing factors to social instability and conflict at local to national and regional levels and disputes and conflicts over land have had a significant impact on the level of investment in land and on agricultural yields.

Land has been one of the root causes of conflicts in Manipur and Northeast in general. Land, particularly for the tribal, remains the single most important physical possession, a stratum for production and livelihoods. As a territory, land plays an important role in shaping the cultural and ethnic identity. Tribal communities have a symbiotic relationship with the land and forests on which their livelihood depends. The land system in Manipur comprises surveyed and unsurveys land. 90 percent of land are hills (unsurvey) and 10 percent are valley (surveyed), tribal groups settled in hills and to an extent followed customary, traditional land usage and management system while the Manipur Land Revenue and Land.
Holkhomang Haokip
Chief Functionary- RAS
Pouchunlung Panmei

Senior Programme Manager- RNBA
Session Organizer:

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Dimgonglung Rongmei

Secretary, RNBA
Akeina Gonmei
Chief Functionary, RBA Nagaland
Prisca Gonmei
Program Manager, RNBA Manipur
Moderator:
Hechin Haokip
Secretary- CWG
Nicole Derbinski
Programme Officer, South Asia Unit at Brot für die Welt, Germany
Sajith Babu
District Collector, Kasargode Government of Kerala
Land conflicts in India are on the rise, despite the existence of several progressive legislations. Effective and long-term resolutions in this area require the assistance and combined effort of several key players – researchers, policymakers, local administrators, judicial/quasi-judicial authorities, land experts, activists, etc. At the heart of the matter lies the complete separation of land policies from research findings and evidence. Bringing research into policy and practice, is in fact a challenge faced globally. Here, the administrators have a key role to play, who are often viewed as critical actors in policymaking. They act as mediators between researchers, interest groups and policymakers; the detachment of their position making their advice to politicians more informed.
The ILDC 2021 Round Table is a platform for young administrators and researchers to interact and share their ideas. While on the one hand we need to improve and diversify the subjects of research, young administrators need to seek out innovative ideas from researchers.
Sumeendranath R
CEO/Software Advisor & Architect
Whitesun Technologies India / Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre
Hari Chandran
Activist, Land Record Frauds, Kerala
Session Organizer:

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Sushila Bhatt
Advocate High Court of Kerala
Dr. Ranjan Kumar Ghosh
Associate Professor
IIMA
Ms.Seema Mundoli
Assistant Professor
Azim Premji University
Arabinda Padhee

IAS Country Director, ICRISAT
Ruth Hall
Professor, Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS)
Hridesh Sharma
Research and development officer,
Caritas Nepal/SAFBIN program
Session Organizer:

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Sunil Simon
Strengthening Adaptive Farming in Bangladesh, India & Nepal (SAFBIN)
Jasmine Joseph
SAFBIN
Pradipta Kishor Chand
Lead – Climate Adaptive Agriculture and Food Sovereignty (CAA&FS), Caritas India
S M Zillur Rahaman
National Coordinator
SAFBIN Caritas Bangladesh
South Asia’s recent agricultural transitions are unprecedented – they are not only influenced by market but also triggered by climate change and very recently by COVID 19 pandemic. Market forces are increasingly influencing the nature of farming through their expanding grip over research, extension and technology. Starting from the choice of crops, to level of diversification, to type of inputs use and intensity of mechanisation, all are now market-influenced. Market forces are also determining the type of farmer – who can continue to farm, remain viable, adaptive and resilient – through defining the scale, efficiency, surplus and access to financial services, which are the new policy and investment drivers. Identity and hierarchy of farmers are also dictated by land administration policy of the government making record of land ownership/tenancy, an eligibility criteria to be farmer and to get access to public services, entitlement as well as formal finance, market and compensation.

Climate change impacts are now more visible in South Asian farms, with ever increasing occurrences of extreme climate events and disasters posing serious threat to the agricultural systems. Climate change has also given rise to vector borne diseases resulting in new and increased viral loads causing new epidemics and pandemics. Smallholders, especially women, tenants and other vulnerable section of the communities are the most vulnerable to the climate change and pandemics – given their blurred identity as farmers and low capacity to bear the shock or come out of the stress.

Market influences, together with climate change and pandemics, have started significantly impacting the way agriculture is being practiced by the dominant smallholder farmers – more particularly the women and tenant farmers, those with limited access to and control over land. On one hand they are constrained to access formal finance, technology, subsidies and direct benefit transfers, available to land holder farmers, reducing their competitive advantage as producer in the market while increasing their vulnerability to the risks due to climate change and pandemics.

On the other, these forces are also directly fast changing the agriculture practices by changing farming practices (viz. use of livestock), cropping patterns (viz. high value crops), input use (viz. high external input agriculture), farm environment (viz. protected cultivation) and farming knowledge (viz fast changing & externally sourced). In the process they are taking farming control out of farmers. These have significant impact on small farmers’ food and nutritional security, livelihood opportunities and resilience capacities.

Caritas Organsations are working in South Asia with smallholder famers in building resilience to climate change and food security. SAFBIN, as a regional program, working with women and small farmers in four South Asian countries to promote land tenure security, agroecological practices, collectivization, farmer-led research and partnerships to ensure food and nutritional security, farm income enhancement and resilience. ICRISAT is a thought leader and a reliable partner with expertise in nurturing dryland agri-food systems. We have been discussing on the impacts of multifaceted challenges faced by the communities primarily depending on agriculture and the local ecosystem.

In this proposed session at ILDC2021, SAFBIN and ICRISAT come together to discuss how these transitions are impacting small farmers and within them how differently the landowners, women and tenants in these countries and how are they adapting to these transitions.
Shipra Deo
Director Women ‘s Land Rights, Landesa
Inheritance, women, customary laws and dispute resolution

This panel focusses on land rights of women in rural India, with panellists focussing on different parts of India through their fieldwork and research in the area. Designed to provoke and promote interdisciplinary discussion of familiar subjects of ILDC on gender and land which have arrived at familiar conclusions about current and former social and legal bias against women’s land ownership, this panel then departs into addressing customary laws and its coexistence with state-made law, and discusses its implications for women rights, and the rule of law. The idea is to understand laws, norms, dispute resolution process that affect women within the broader and wider frame of the rule of law, governance, culture, heritage, and human rights, aiming at providing fresh insights. The panel is composed of speakers and a discussant drawn from NGO practice, law and anthropology.
Dr. Kalindi Kokal
Post Doctoral Fellow- Centre for Policy Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India
Discussant:
Dr. Prakash Shah
Reader in Culture and Law,
Queen Mary, University of London
Session Organizer:

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Chamu Kuppuswamy
University of Hertfordshire,
United Kingdom
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Dr Serene Ho
RMIT University Australlia
This session presents some early findings from research undertaken in 8 informal settlement communities across the state of Odisha, where large-scale slum formalization and upgrading is underway under the mantle of ‘JAGA’ Mission. With the award of limited land rights to slum dwellers legislated in 2017, drone-based mapping has been a key technological strategy for producing settlement maps for adjudicating boundaries for land certification purposes. This session presents perceptions of slum dwellers on three key issues: 1) perceptions about the benefits of the land certificate; 2) perceptions around the technical processes of mapping and data collection; 3) perceptions around changes (if any) in communities’ relationship with the state and/or land intermediaries.

Rationale

This session recognises the growing use of – and reliance on – modern mapping and digital technologies in land administration practices in the Global South. A large part of these investments targets the production and management of land tenure data in vulnerable communities, commonly informal settlements or other lands held in extra-legal or customary tenures. This brings to bear the need to consider the fraught intersection of western technologies and techniques of mapping, colonial concepts of boundaries and property rights, local values and norms, a presumption of literacy (digital, spatial, technological, etc.), and the implications this conveys for vulnerable communities and what this means for practicing ‘responsible’ land administration.

Expected outcomes

This session hopes to stimulate discussions about the ethical use of technologies and assumptions around techniques of mapping and participatory data collection, and the implications these have for responsible land administration.

Prof. Walter de Vries
Technical University Munich
Session Organizer:
Pranab Choudhary
Secretary ILDC
Founder NRMC-CLG (Intellecap Subsidiary)
Dr. Pradeep Nayak Joint Commissioner, Gopabandhu Academy of Administration, Govt. of Odisha
Aparna Das
Senior Advisor with GIZ, India
Dimuna Phiri
Legal and Land Administration Specialist, Land Equity International
Shri Aurbindo Behra
Ex Revenue Secretary, Govt of Odisha
Land Administration in India is often seen as complicated, overlapping structures and is perceived as a major bottleneck for resolving the land issues and/or facilitating the land reforms on the ground. While heavily loaded revenue administration, poor capacity and resource base are usually blamed as reasons for the long pendency of the issues and poor delivery of services, of late, states have also demonstrated examples how they can be overcome, with technology or institutional innovations or through enlightened leaders/champions. Only a good law or progressive enactment is not enough, what is needed is an equally sensible land administration especially for the effective execution of land reforms. Similarly technology – esp the recent advancements in IT and GIS space that are seen as panacea by land administration, also lead to potential externalities – more so for the women, poor and marginalised, unless the land administration implementers carefully adapt them to socio-cultural contexts.

Over the years, we have witnessed both successful and non-responsive models of land administration which has directly impacted thousands of landless and homeless poor. Considering the growing landlessness and homelessness it is very important to improve the land administration for resolving pending disputes and land conflicts. Only a sensible and responsive land administration will be able to ensure justice to the millions of people waiting for their due land rights.

This particular session, will seek to understand the spaces within land administration, from an insider perspective and explore how and when reform or people-centred land governance are administered. It aims to do so, by engaging retired and serving land administrators, who have successfully steered those reforms and often seen as people’s land administrators.
Shri Alex Paul Menon
IAS, Govt. of Chhattisgarh
Ramesh Sharma
General Secretary
Ekta Parishad

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Smt Karuna
IAS, Govt. of Telengana
Session Organizer:
Dr. Shekhar Shah
Former NCAER Director General
& World Bank Regional Economic Adviser for South Asia
OPEN HOUSE on Land, People & Development in 2030

This valedictory plenary is envisaged as an OPEN HOUSE . Here everybody willing to speak can share their thoughts and insights about Land, People & Development in 2030 in 2-3 min pitches. The idea is to have a thought provoking ending to ILDC2021, with participants bringing in an inter-disciplinary and futuristic land agenda in the concluding plenary.

We will try to have some reflections from the ILDC Advisors towards the end of this session.
Usha Ramanathan
Editor, South Asia LEAD Journal
Vote of Thanks
Shipra Deo
Director Women ‘s Land Rights, Landesa
Session Organizer:

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Dr. Nivedita Haran
IAS (Retd)
Former-Addl Chief Secretary,
Kerala and Faculty, JNU
Jayesh Bhatia
Managing Director, NRMC (Intellecap Subsidiary)
Moderator
Pranab R Choudhury
Secretary ILDC
Founder NRMC-CLG (Intellecap Subsidiary)

Chilombo Musa,
Institute for Poverty, Land and
Agrarian Studies (PLAAS)
Moderator:
Serene Ho
RMIT University, Australia
Masalu Luhula
Land Tenure Specialist
Landesa
Session Organizer:
Eileen Wakesho Mwagae
Community Land
Protection Advisor
for Kenya, NAMATI
Sylvain Muyombano
Registrar of land titles, Southern Province, Rwanda
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Dr. Lorenzo Cotula
Principal Researcher
International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)
Dr. Reshmy Nair
Professor & Director,
Centre for Management of Land Acquisition, Resettlement & Rehabilitation (CMLARR), ASCII
Dr.Phillan Zamchiya
Senior Researcher
Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS)
Session Organizer:
Dr. Gemma van der Haar
Chair Group Sociology of Development and Change, Wageningen University and
Dr Shashi R Singh
Research Fellow
Department of Geography, Cambridge University
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Ms. Menare Royal Mabakeng,
Land Administration Programs Coordinator and lecturer,
Namibia University of Science and Technology
Prof. Uchendu Eugene Chigbu,
Associate Professor,
Namibia University of Science and Technology – Co. Chair of the Research Cluster of the Global Land Tool Network (GLTN)
Session Organizer:
Mr Thierry Ngoga Hoza,
Head, State Capability,
Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)
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Session Organizer:
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Simon Peter Mwesigye,
Land Tenure Specialist,
GLTN/UN-Habitat
Frances Birungi
The Executive Director ,Coordinator – Stand for her land rights Uganda
UCOBAC
Bashir Kizito Juma
Head of Department of Operations and Business Development
Buganda Land Board
Simon Kabogoza
CEO Buganda Land Board
Cissy Namuddu Kiyaga,
Ph.D. Fellow
Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR)
Olekwa Abdunassar
Principal Land Officer
Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development
LESSONS FROM UGANDA

Uganda just like India were British colonies. Whereas there are differences, commonalities exist too. The session on Uganda intends to share about land administration and management in the postcolonial era in Uganda. It brings together stakeholders with diverse expertise on the various land tenure systems in Uganda: customary land administration in Uganda, women land rights, Buganda Land Board who manage land on behalf of the Kabaka of Buganda with a focus on the mailo land tenure system and its unique characteristics, as well as the leasehold tenure which will elucidate on the tenant – landlord relationship. The session will draw lessons from Uganda, share challenges and offer recommendations not only for Uganda but to benefit south to south knowledge sharing and formulation of coalitions/partnerships in the land sector that seek to work towards a more equitable and just society.
Session Organizer:
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Innocent Antoine HOUEDJI,
Founder & Executive Director, YILAA
Ameth Diallo
Head of Research and Training,
YILAA
Marianne Kamsuri
Vice-President,
YILAA Tanzania
Georges GAMBADATOUN,
Head of Organisational Development,
YILAA
Pacifique KANIYIKI
DRC Focal Point,
YILAA
Pranab Ranjan Choudhury
Secretary ILDC
Founder NRMC-CLG (Intellecap Subsidiary)
Youth Initiative for Land in Africa (YILAA), an international Youth Land Organization, as a major youth land voice in Africa, will be joining the ILDC on Africa to share and learn. It is a great pleasure and an important milestone in terms of South-South collaboration. YILAA’s session will takle Youth Land Training and Research programs in Africa. Afterward, the audience will get to know more about the International Youth Land Governance Conference in Africa (CIGOFA) and the interests for Youth and States. We will conclude our session with a study case: Youth Land Governance programs in DRC. YILAA has developped a great knowledge on land governance in Africa, it is our pleasure to share with the audience while we learn from the experience of the ILDC.
Session Organizer:
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Oumar Sylla,
Regional Chief,
UN Habitat, Africa
Mr Thierry Ngoga Hoza
Head, State Capability,
Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)
Prof Mutjinde Katjiua
Associate Professor
Head of Department
NUST
Liz Alden Wily
Independent Land and Resource Tenure Specialist
Welcome Note:
Jayesh Bhatia
Managing Director, NRMC (Intellecap Subsidiary)
Pranab Ranjan Choudhury
Secretary ILDC
Founder NRMC-CLG (Intellecap Subsidiary)