Rally to highlight poor infrastructure in government schools By Our Representation A survey by Navsarjan Trust, Ahmedabad's Dalit rights organization, has revealed that despite Gujarat government claims of one of the best infrastructure facilities compared to rest of India’s schools, things have failed to improve in remote and backward villages. In a representation handed over to the district education officer, the Baal Adhikar Suraksha Samiti, a local NGO working for child rights, has revealed, quoting the survey, how in several of the primary schools there are no separate toilets for girls, there is lack of basic seating facilities for children from classes 1 to 4, and computers, though installed, are not in use.

By Our Representative In a representation to KG Balakrishnan, chairperson, National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Delhi, top civil rights activist Gopal Krishna of the Toxics Watch Alliance (TWA) has submitted that the death of "some 10 migrant workers"  on Alang beach, Bhavnagar, Gujarat, on June 28 suggests that the authorities continue to treat such accidents as a routine affair and have become “part of a pattern.” The deaths occurred due to a blast triggered by a suspected gas leak that took place in a ship being dismantled at the Alang ship-breaking yard in plot No 140.

By A Representative Around 30 mass organizations, attached with the National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM), have strongly protested against the Government of India (GoI) move to bring about changes in the new land acquisition Act, saying any move in that direction will be met with “stiff resistance.” Asking the GoI to ensure its “strict implementation”, the NAPM, which is led by Narmada Bachao Andolan’s (NBA’s) Medha Patkar, said, “The news that two of the key provisions of the Act, consent and social impact assessment (SIA), are to be amended is completely unacceptable.”

Exclusive well for Dalits in Panva By Our Representative While the officialdom seems worried about failure of rains in Gujarat, fresh information from the state’s rural areas suggest it is starting to affect the marginalized communities the most. A case in point is the plea to the Surendranagar district collector by a local women’s organization of Panva village, Patdi taluka of the district, seeking the top officialdom’s direct intervention to ensure that the Dalits get equal share of water supply. The Panva Mahila Adhikar Panch in its plea has alleged prevalence of untouchability practice against Dalit women in accessing water from the public well of the village.

By A Representative In an important submission before the Law Commission of India, the Amnesty International India has insisted on the need to undertake critical legal reforms to better defend the right to free speech. Saying that this is important against the backdrop of a “growing trend of intolerance towards dissent and criticism” in the recent weeks, elucidating the submission, Amnesty's senior policy adviser Shailesh Rai said, “Authorities have shown a worrying eagerness to arrest and detain people for the lawful exercise of their constitutional rights to free speech, especially when it concerns the new Prime Minister.”

By A Representative Hundreds of safai karmacharis, mainly belonging to the Dalit Valmiki community, have protested against the failure of the Gujarat government to allocate them land for building houses in Viramgam, a town situated in the neighbourhood of Ahmedabad, whose vicinity is likely to see major industrial activity in the near future. The local municipality gave a nod for two plots of land – Survey Nos 377 and 178-- measuring 21,954 square metres way back in 2010, so that they could build their own houses. But so far nothing has been done to allocate the land to the "neglected" families, many of whom are permanent members of municipality, while others are daily wagers.

By A Representative Top social activist, Narmada Bachao Andolan’s Medha Patkar, fighting against the Narmada dam for decades, has alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi “influenced” the Narmada Control Authority (NCA) “politically” to raise the Narmada dam’s height. She said, she was “shocked” that the decision of the NCA, the multi-state body authorized for all the decisions on the Narmada project, was taken “bypassing the three concerned Union ministers -- Uma Bharti (water resources), Thavaar Chand Gehlot (social justice and empowerment) and Prakash Javdekar (environment), all from Madhya Pradesh.”

Khambhat's Fatesinh, a silicosis victim By Our Representative Will the Gujarat government implement its word to pay compensation of paltry Rs 1 lakh against those who died because of the deadly occupational disease silicosis starting with 2007? While the amount itself is very small, in a recent decision, it decided to pay up the relatives of those who died while working in agate stone-cutting factories, mainly in Khambhat, with effect from January 2014. “We have been assured that the matter will be sorted out”, said Jagdish Patel of the People’s Training and Research Centre (PTRC), which works among silicosis workers. “However, it must await ministerial nod”, he added.

By A Representative The Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), India’s most well-known anti-Narmada dam body, has said that the recent decision of the Government of India to raise the dam height from 121.92 metres to 139.68 metres has been reached with an eye on helping Gujarat-based “corporates and industries”, who have been “eyeing the Narmada waters and command area land” for quite some time. With this aim in mind, NBA added, “the Gujarat government plans to denotify 4 lakh hecatres (ha) of land from the command area and reserve it for corporates.”

By A Representative In a significant move, the Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) has declared that the “higher price” being offered by the Government of India to it for oil and gas exploration off Andhra Pradesh coast is “not market linked”, and it should get an even more, in keeping with market realities. The "revision", which the Government of India has still not formally announced, is from $4.2 per MMBtu (million British thermal units) to $8.4 MMBtu, which was challenged by several politicians, including Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Arvind Kejriwal, who claimed it would mean a “windfall” of Rs 54,500 crore to the RIL.

Counterview Desk A recent study, “Annual Survey of India’s City Systems (ASICS) 2014: Shaping India’s Urban Agenda”, has found that Ahmedabad ranks No 10th in a group of 21 selected cities selected for survey ascertaining quality of life survey across India. Claiming to an “objective evaluation of city-systems", taking into account  "complex, mostly invisible factors such as laws, policies, institutions, processes and accountability mechanisms that strongly influence quality of life in our cities”, the survey, carried out by a high-profile Bangalore-based NGO, Janaagraha, defines “quality of life” to mean “both quality of infrastructure and services, and quality of citizenship.” The only other city from Gujarat taken up for survey is Surat, which scores No 7 -- better than Ahmedabad.

Villagers protest against weir By A Representative The Gujarat government has claimed that villagers, whose land has been acquired for constructing the Garudeshwar weir across Narmada river, and 12 km from the Narmada dam site, were “fully satisfied” with the package offered to them decades ago. In said this in an affidavit filed before the National Green Tribunal (NGT) in response to a petition filed by Gujarat-based environmental body Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti (PSS), seeking stoppage of work at the weir, alleging the weir’s environmental and rehabilitation and resettlement (R&R) clearances have not been taken, as required by law.

By A Representative Gujarat High Court hearing in the anticipatory bail applications of top human rights activist Teesta Setalvad, her husband Javed Anand and three survivors of the 2002 Gulberg Society massacre of Gujarat, Tanvir Jafri, Salim Sandhi and Firoz Gulzar Pathan has been postponed till July 9, 2014. This happened, according to a statement issued by Setalvad’s NGO Centre for Justice and Peace (CJP), following a 96 page counter affidavit “complete with detailed records from audited accounts and bank statements disproving baseless allegations made by the Crime Branch, Ahmedabad.”

Villagers protest against Garudeshwar Dam By Rohit Prajapati, Lakhan Musafir* In our case against Garudeshwar Weir (being set up about 12 km downstream of the Sardar Sarovar Dam in Narmada river) in the National Green Tribunal (NGT), the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), has said, “… no project proposal regarding Garudeshwar Weir at Garudeshwar village, District Narmada of Gujarat, has been received in this Ministry.” The Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Ltd (SSNNL) has said, its affidavit is only for “the limited purpose”, it is “not dealing with the application parawise”, nor it is “giving elaborate details which would show that construction of Garudeshwar Weir is strictly in conformity with law.” It is now clear: the SSNNL has no documents to show and prove that the construction of Garudeshwar Weir is going on as per the law. In their replies the MoEF, the Narmada Control Authority (NCA) and the SSNNL do not deny our contention that:There has never been an environment and soci...

By Gagan Sethi and Rajiv Shah Review* of the book by Felix Padel, Ajay Dandekar and Jeemol Unni, Ecology Economy: Quest for a Socially Informed Connection (Orient Blackswan, Hyderabad, 2013, pp 340, Rs795) The book under review has gone a long way towards questioning the manner in which some of the key concepts such as development and under-development have been widely used, ever since the days of Herbert Spencer, Marx, Engels and others, right up to modern-day theorists from both the Left and the Right. Questioning the “uniform model” of set stages of development, from primitive communism to feudalism and capitalism used by these theorists, the authors point out that the rapid growth envisaged by these intellectuals has seen the culmination of a ‘New World Order’, leading to extreme forms of exploitation and inequality, and resulting in major issues related to environmental degradation and a steep rise in ‘ecological refugees’. Arguing against the type of neoliberal capitalism that is...

Navi Pillay in Geneva with Dalit rights activist Manjula Pradeep By Our Representative Addressing the UN Human Rights Council at Geneva, Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, has sought to link the recent rape and murder of two teenage girls in Katra village of Uttar Pradesh with what she called sigma of “double assault of caste-based and gender-based discrimination”. Pillay told the conference, cosponsored by Human Rights Watch, that this stigma is further compounded by “discrimination based on their occupation and other socio-economic factors, including whether or not they are migrants.”

By A Representative Senior UN human rights officials at a United Nations Human Rights Council side-event at Geneva on June 17, 2014, have called for ”immediate efforts to end caste-based rape and violence against women” in India. The event, co-sponsored by Human Rights Watch, the top US-based rights group, ”followed urgent global calls for action from numerous human rights organizations, India’s UN representative, and policymakers from around the world in response to the gang-rape and hanging of two girls in India on May 27”, a statement issued by the International Dalit Salidarity Network, said.

Teesta Setalvad By A Representative In an important move, the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), India’s top rights body, has sought “independent review and intervention” by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) “to stop the continuing persecution and prosecution of human rights defenders, Teesta Setalvad and Javed Anand of the Citizens for Peace and Justice (CPJ), as also others. In a petition filed with the NHRC, the PUCL said, the intervention was needed as the Gujarat government was seeking institute “false” misappropriation cases. The cases were in retaliation of the fight they had put up for victims of communal riots in Gujarat.

By Our Representative A top source, known to have worked in close proximity with former Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi before Modi took over as India’s Prime Minister, has raised an alarm: The appointment of RN Choubey, a 1981 batch IAS officer, in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) was “cancelled” overnight “under pressure" from industrial houses, including Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL). While official reason being cited for this is, the Modi government doesn’t want the PMO to become “heavy top”, actually a similar situation prevailed in October 2013, when Choubey was eased out as director-general hydrocarbons (DGH) by the UPA government for "differing" with RIL.

By A Representative Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah flagged off Right to Information (RTI) Bharat Yatra on June 16 in Jammu, organized by Mahiti Adhikar Gujarat Pahel (MAGP) amidst clear signals emerging that the powerful tool promoting transparency may come under Government of India scanner, with efforts being made to point towards how RTI has become a "hindrance" to growth. Supported in J&K by Sangharsh J&K RTI Movement, the multi-media van, RTI on Wheels, will become the vehicle of MAGP’s RTI Bharat Yatra across India over the next few months. In Jammu, Balvinder Singh, convenor, Sangarsh RTI Movement J&K stated, “RTI has proved to be a powerful tool in the hands of common citizens. It has helped efforts to make government transparent and accountable. It is necessary that the powerful tool reaches to common citizen.”

Suhas Paranjape By Our Representative In the years to come, will the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP) on the Narmada river no more remain an inter-state project, as has been widely claimed? If so far Gujarat government officials have been saying this (read HERE ), of course of the record, now a senior water resources expert has suggested that this may well happen once the two states – Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh – fully utilize their share of water. Suhas Paranjape , who has long been associated with people’s movements on sustainable development, has told Counterview that the benefits of power – the factor which makes SSP inter-state – will not last forever, and the neghbouring states should better realize this.

By Our Representative Is there a direct relationship between the latest Intelligence Bureau (IB) report calling powerful environmental international NGO Greenpeace “ as threat to national economic security ” and the recent campaign by Greenpeace against Adani Group? It would seem so, if has a closer look at a new report titled “Research Briefing: Adani’s Record of Environmental Destruction and Non-compliance with Regulations”, which has been released alongside a fact sheet. Adanis are known to be close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and there is already a view that the the IB’s effort was just move closer to the new masters (read HERE ).

By Our Representative In a major admission, the Gujarat government in a recent document has gone to suggest that, far from being an urban model, Gujarat’s urban areas are extremely poorly managed. Giving figures, the document admits, malnutrition levels in the state’s urban areas are higher than rural areas, even as adding, 50 per cent of urban areas lack basic infrastructure like water and sanitation. The document says, in the urban areas, two per cent children are “severely malnourished” and 33 per cent are “moderately malnourished”, in the rural areas, 1.5 per cent are “severely malnourished” and 25.86 per cent are “moderately malnourished”.

By A Representative The People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) has asked the Government of India not to criminalize dissent in the guise of Intelligence Bureau (IB) report on non-government organizations (NGOs), who it has claimed are seeking to “retard” the country’s growth because they raise people’s issues. Submitted to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the IB report, according to the PUCL, India’s premier human rights organization, has done nothing but to “intimidate, slander, throttle and terrorize the voice of various citizens' groups, NGOs and individuals.”

Tapi adivasi meet By A Representative In a development that may create some flutter in the establishment, the Akhil Bharaiya Adivasi Ekta Andolan, Tapi, Gujarat, in what may appear to be an unprecedented representation to the district collector, has demanded that tribal farmers should be allowed to use tractors to till their lands they have lately come to own. Coming from an organization operating in a district whose majority of the population is tribal, the representation wonders, at a time when tribals are being recognized as farmers and given land to till under the forest rights Act, 2006, there is little reason why they should be deprived of the use of modern equipment till their land.

By Himanshu Thakkar, Rohit Prajapati* In a shocking decision on June 12, 2014, the Narmada Control Authority (NCA), headed by the secretary, Union ministry of water resources (MoWR), and which includes secretary of Union ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) and senior officials of four states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, have sanctioned installation of 17 metre high gates on the Sardar Sarovar Dam on Narmada river in Gujarat, taking the effective current height of the dam from 121.92 m to 138.68 m. This has been done after the rehabilitation sub-group (RSG) of the NCA, chaired by secretary, Union ministry of social justice and empowerment (MoSJE) has also cleared this decision. This decision implies submergence of thousands of hectares (ha) of land and displacement of lakhs of tribals and farmers in three states of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, when their rehabilitation, as legally required, has not been done. More importantly, Gujarat and Raj...

By Our Representative Gujarat’s one of the most well-known senior journalists, Prashant Dayal, who shot into prominence nationally after al case of sedition was instituted against him for a series of scathing stories on then police commissioner OP Mathur in the Times of India in 2008, has been asked leave his chief reporter’s job and instead go to Dhanbad, Jharkhand, by his new bosses of the Bhaskar group. Reason? Says Dayal, “I refused to sign-up a letter forwarded to me by the management, which said I will not accept the Justice Majithia wage board award. It is a punishment posting, which I will not accept.”

Dalits of Jaspur village By A Representative After the lapse of over a year, Jaspur village of Padra taluka in Vadodara district is once again in the spot. A year ago, on April 13, 2013, the Dalits of the village strongly protested against the dominant castemen providing separate seating arrangement for dinner to the Dalits during a public ceremony at the temple. Taking exception to this and saying that it amounted to treating them as “untouchables”, the Dalits, led by Shantilal Parmar, filed, with great difficulty, an anti-atrocities case against the organizers of the ceremony. “While meek action was taken against the culprits, a year later, the dominant caste leaders decided to retaliate”, Parmar alleged talking to Counterview.

Rajasthan CM By A Representative In a statement, the National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM), the powerful rights-based NGOs' network, has strongly condemned what it has called “highhanded and illegal action of the Jaipur Development Authority (JDA), operating directly under chief minister Vasundhara Raje, against the Rajasthan Samagra Seva Sangh, a well-known Gandhian institute. “The JDA has no authority to seal and vacate the premises of the institution and throw out its residents. It must restore the possession to the Sangh and wait for the pending decision in the High Court, rather than take this drastic and illegal step of sealing the premises”, the statement said.

By Our Representative Latest information from a well-placed Gujarat official source has revealed that Gujarat’s private consumer expenditure is not commensurate with the overall growth the state has been experiencing. Suggesting dormant capacity of private consumers as compared to many other states, the data – as found reflected in a top document yet to be made public – suggest that in 2011-12 Gujarat’s gross state domestic product (GSDP) at current prices was 611,767 crore, but the private consumer expenditure formed Rs 287,661 crore, or just about 47 per cent of the GSDP. If the data are any indication, this was the lowest percentage spent by an individual state in proportion to its GSDP.

New finance minister Arun Jaitley By  Rajiv Shah Will the Government of India’s new policy framework for budget adopt the “model” worked out by the Gujarat government under Narendra Modi, in which the richer states should walk away with a much higher cake of the Central funds as compared to the poorer states? It would seem so, if one takes a closer look at one of the most crucial documents prepared by the Gujarat government late last year, but not made public because of reasons best known to the officialdom. Submitted to the Centre-appointed 14th Finance Commission, the document crucially calls for “an urgent need to include” a formula in devolution of Central funds which would “incentivize economic efficiency.”

By A Representative Advance release of the opening remarks, which Navi Pillay, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, will be delivering at the Human Rights Council’s 26th session on June 10 at Geneva, reveals that the top UN body is all set to highlight issues pertaining to caste and Dalit discrimination as one of the major agendas during future discussions on human rights. Suggesting that caste-based discrimination as equal to the discrimination based on religion and race, Pillai, who is to be replaced by Jordan's Zeid Al Hussein soon, regrets, certain countries refuse to discuss contentious issues related to discrimination.

By Venkatesh Nayak* The last few weeks have mutely witnessed several horrific rapes and murders of women across India. Police response is said to have ranged from apathy and inaction to complete hostility towards the complainants, sufferers of violence (‘victims’ would be a pejorative label thrust upon them) and their families. While many of us read such news items in passing, others are protesting in their own way either before the corridors of power or venting their righteous anger through the media. The keepers of the law like the proverbial ass are tardy in their response. In at least one case rather than take action against the accused and the police who were either perpetrators of such crimes or refused to take immediate action, letters are being exchanged clarifying the caste identity of the sufferers. So one must carry a caste certificate in hand to claim justice in some parts of the country. Meanwhile the accused are said to have threatened the families of the sufferers with d...

Counterview Desk Paryavaran Mitra, Gujarat’s environmental groups, has taken strong exception to the refusal of the Gujarat government to comply by orders of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) in cases fought with its active support. Prepared by Gujarat Social Watch, operating under the auspices of Paryavaran Mitra, its latest study, “Assessment of working of National Green Tribunal (NGT): With special reference to cases from Gujarat and western region bench of Pune”, has cited two such cases where the state officialdom has shown particular inertia.

Ela Bhatt By A Representative In an open statement, 120-odd prominent intellectuals have taken strong exception to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) for remaining “silent on this blatant attack on curbing citizens’ free speech and expression” by the saffron brigade and its supporters. Blaming the state machinery for taking advantage of “the draconian Section 66A of the Information and Technology (IT) Act, 2000,” they have particularly opposes “criminal punishment” of up to three years for merely sending messages which can cause “annoyance” or “inconvenience” or “danger” or “insult”, and gives unfettered discretion to enforcement agencies to enforce it.

GPCB member-secretary Hardik Shah By Our Representative The Gujarat government is in no mood to accept the strong suggestion put forward by a well-attended seminar of senior environmentalists, environmental lawyers, experts and activists for a separate bench of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) in Ahmedabad. Called by Gujarat’s premier environmental body, Paryavaran Mitra, the suggestion was put forward by Mahesh Pandya, its director, in the presence of a senior environmental official of the state government, Hardik Shah. “The pollution level of Gujarat industries is very high, one of the highest in India, hence there is reason enough to have an NGT bench in Ahmedabad”, Pandya insisted.

By Our Representative “Akkha gamna kaam thaay pan amara falia na koi kaam thata nathi”, Chitharbhai from one of the coastal villages in Gujarat complained over phone, pointing out that the authorities in the village, to which he belongs, have been discriminating against the Dalit colony while taking up public works. Bringing this to light, senior right to information activist, Pankti Jog has said, “This is one of the most common Dalit complaints I have received on my right to information (RTI) helpline, 9924085000.”

Dalits protest against social boycott By A Representative Threat of forced migration is looming large over the Dalit community of Kudol village of Modasa taluka in the newly-formed Aravalli district, North Gujarat, following an upper caste attack on a wedding procession on May 24, where social boycott has been imposed on Dalit families. The attack took place after several dominant castemen objected to the bridegroom riding a horse during the wedding procession, to which the Dalits refused. The procession was attacked despite the fact that eight policemen accompanied the procession. A mob, consisting of several dozen persons, pelted stones on Dalits, injuring some of them, including cops.

By Venkatesh Nayak* The Government of India has published in the Official Gazette the Terms of Reference (ToR) of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) it has set up to investigate the issue of black money stashed abroad by Indians. The setting up of the SIT amounts to a welcome reversal of previous government policy on this subject. The previous government had opposed this direction despite a clear order from the Supreme Court in 2011. The SIT will be headed by Justice (Retd) M B Shah with Justice Arijit Pasayat as Vice-Chair. The rest of the members are the same ex officiosenior bureaucrats who were part of the High Level Committee set up by the previous Government to look into the cases of persons who were said to have stashed away money in foreign banks abroad. The Joint Secretary (Revenue) has been added to this list as Member Secretary of the SIT. This SIT is an outcome of the directions of the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India in the matter of Ram Jethmalani and Ors. vs Union of Ind...