The brief focuses on Sustainable Land Management (SLM). Eradicating poverty, reducing inequalities, and advancing inclusive growth are directly linked to how we manage our planet’s terrestrial ecosystems and the goods and services they provide. This includes the earth’s soil which provides over US$16 trillion worth of ecosystem services each year.

This paper is an attempt to look at the rationale behind these reforms, status of these pro poor reforms across different states in India and bottlenecks hampering the implementation of these reforms. As two reforms from the RAY reform agenda are from JnNURM era, and also many states already have acts and policies to provide property rights to slum dwellers, certain case studies and legislation reviews have been added to make this paper further informative.

This is a working paper and the project is part of a larger research agenda which attempts to understand inequalities within groups that are recognised as disadvantaged by the Indian state. Specific focus is the set of groups labeled as Mahadalits by the Government of Bihar, who are a subset of the SCs in the state.

Author(s) is particularly interested in whether programs for Mahadalits suffer from the same problems as past attempts at equalising opportunity through affirmative action.

It is in this spirit that the Second Administrative Reforms commission (ARc) in its Report on capacity building for conflict Resolution has tried to examine the background and emerging facets of the many conflicts that plague India.

There is a direct relationship between women’s right to land, economic empowerment, food security and poverty reduction. A gender approach to land rights can enable shifts in gender power relations, and assure that all people, regardless of sex, benefit from, and are empowered by, development policies and practices to improve people’s rights to land. This brief gives an overview on how to consider gender aspects in projects and programmes addressing land rights.