Fifth ILDC 2021 is being organized amidst the pandemic crisis. We have rescheduled the event to November and decided to go for a hybrid mode to continue instituting the event every calendar year since its inception, as per the decision of the Organizing Committee. Adapting to the context, this year’s theme has been agreed as ‘Land Security for Peace and Resilience’

ILDC2021 will continue to extend platforms for enriching and interdisciplinary land conversations in form of sessions for presentations, panel discussions, round tables as well as avenues like master classes, lightening talks and focussed conclaves. We invite presentations and conversations on, good and not so practices, scalable as well as downsized models, techniques and innovations in India and learnings, issues and challenges across land domain from India, South Asia as well as from around the globe. ILDC 2021 hopes to promote data and evidence based, practicum oriented, academic research, action research, entrepreneurial ideas and achievements as well as activists and advocacy propositions around disciplines and cross cutting fields connecting land and development.

As the world is dealing with a pandemic, its repercussions being reflected in India as well, along with an economic crisis and mass reverse migration which has significantly impacted lives and livelihoods of people across sectors, ILDC2021 invites attention to the relevance and threats of land security, in the context of inclusive and sustainable development with inbuilt resilience to future shocks. Land being a solid form of physical and cultural capital in India, land tenure security and its potential impacts on livelihood security, food and nutritional Security, health and wellbeing of individuals, families and communities are worth exploring especially in the pandemic context.

Furthering inclusion has been an agenda of ILDC and how diverse tenure regimes around different land uses influence land rights of marginalized groups with a special focus on women’s land rights, indigenous rights and customary tenure regimes, farmers and pastoralists etc. will be preferred for deliberation this year.

Of particular interest to this year’s conference is also the assessment of potentials, preparedness and pathways with respect to the land tenure issues and options in the UN decade of Ecosystem Restoration (2021 – 2030), starting this year.

ILDC as a platform seeks to trigger intensification and diversification of meaningful and strategic land engagements by land actors within and across pillars of Samaj (Society), Sarkar (Government), Khabar (Media) and Bazaar (Market) and therefore experiences, cases, reviews and debates on how these stakeholders interact among and with each other to engage with land tenure security are welcome.

ILDC 2021 seeks to also highlight Land and Technology Interface and encourages conversations on relevant ideas, pilots, good practices and failures, as India goes digital aiming conclusive tilting and open land market relying on drones, satellite imageries, block chains, AL and ML to map, document, update and seamlessly link land records.

Private sector Influence on land is now substantive and transcends across land uses and tenures with ambition for growth, achievement of Net Zero targets and attention for sustainability, both steadfastly increasing. While conflicts, alienation and exclusion often attributed to it, sporadic examples around land responsible-investments and innovative win-win engagements have started upcoming. ILDC 2021, seeks to expand private sector interactions, particularly around cases and willingness related responsible-investment, technology innovation not only as CSR and R&R, but also as a core strategy of corporate governance, underlining the criticality of land as key investment crucible.

Cultural and artistic expressions around land has been part of our culture, literature, dance forms, films and storey telling. Along with intellectual deliberations, political discourses and social narratives, they subtly yet substantially influence and impact land awareness, engagements and trigger changes. This ILDC onwards, we provision space for sharing and display of such expressions as a lighter yet impactful medium of communicating land.

ILDC2021 will have following cross-cutting TRACKs, around which, we invite proposals for sessions, presentations, ideas  and deliberations, that also addresses this year’s theme of ‘Land Security for Peace and Resilience’