By Rohit Prajapati* “Achievable” environmental norms—rather than the “caring capacity” of the environment—are the criteria for the prescribed norms for India’s Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF & CC). Let us fight back the dilution of COD norms from 250 mg/l to 500 mg/l for sea discharge by MoEF & CC; the proposed changes are not based on study but based on the discharged norms which industries might be able to achieve. The MoEF & CC is waiting for “right-time” to make an announcement. This approach of “dilution as the solution” to deal with violations of norms by the present MoEF & CC has been carried over since the former MoEF and continues to deteriorate and deplete the environment at irreversible levels in industrial clusters of India. It is a shameless attempt to condone industrial expansion even in areas where there is evidence that the environment is already ‘critically polluted’. Now we are in an era where the three ministries of environme...

By Our Representative India has told the United Nations (UN) general assembly that it is in no mood to have any new mechanism for protecting human rights defenders or change the present legislative framework, which refuses to protect them. India’s view came even as human rights organizations across India have been feeling increasing signs of intolerance and attacks on human rights defenders under the Modi regime.

By Our Representative A proposal is reported to have been floated in Australia to “extinguish” native title over a leasehold property held by the powerful Indian business house Adanis in the Queensland province, where the top corporate is involved in coming up with a one of the world’s most ambitious $16 billion coal mining project in Carmichael.

By Our Representative More than 500 adivasis, farmers, workers and activists from various mass organizations and movements representing about 25 districts of Madhya Pradesh came together  in Bhopal to represent before a panel of experts on the “ongoing corporate loot and diversion of natural resources” as part of the national campaign begun by the Bhumi Adhikar Andolan (BAA), a new apex body formed to raise grassroots level issues across India.

By Amit Srivastava* Eighteen village panchayats (councils) in the immediate vicinity of the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Mehdiganj in Varanasi district of Uttar Pradesh have come together to demand that the groundwater used by Coca-Cola be stopped immediately due to the growing water crisis in the area.

SEC chairman Varesh Sinha By Our Representative The National Alliance f Peoples Movements (NAPM) has sought judicial investigation for what it has termed as “deliberate deletion of voters’ names in recent municipal corporation elections in Gujarat, especially in Ahmedabad. Seeking re-polling to be declared at booths of those voters whose names were marked “delete” in the voter list, it has said, this is necessary for “upholding” the spirit of “free and fair elections”.

India's milk man, Kurien By RK Misra* To err is human but to really mess up you require a design committee of bureaucrats headed by a politician. How else would you account for the government’s approval to cheap import of butter oil that puts Indian dairy majors – largely it’s milk cooperatives – in an avoidable stranglehold at a time of glut conditions?

By Our Representative In an apparent move to go political, the National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM), apex body of tens of mass organizations of India, has organized a hearing of representatives of civil society and grassroots organizations on whether the words “secular” and “socialist” in the Indian constitution are redundant, as projected in a Government of India advertisement a year ago.

By Our Representative Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, one of the world’s best-known economists, has sharply criticized the present and past governments of India for “trying to become a global economic power with an uneducated and unhealthy labour force.” Sen said, “It’s never been done before, and never will be done in the future either.”

By Our Representative Suspecting wide-scale efforts to “rig” elections to the six municipal corporations, top human rights organization,  a senior activist with the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) has asked Gujarat’s State Election Commission (SEC) to announce “re-voting or make special arrangements for voters who are eligible but could not cast their voters due to negligence of the SEC.”

By Nandini Oza*  Shakespeare in his play Romeo and Juliet wrote the famous lines: “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Similarly, to me, violence by any other name is violence. Therefore I am against any act of violence called by any other name- war, war on terror, terror on war, collateral damage, so on and so forth. I also strongly condemn all violence that kills people no matter what their nationality, race, religion or colour. I wish to also express deep anguish at the recent loss of lives across the world including in the recent attacks on unarmed people in a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders in Afghanistan and the innocent people who lost their lives in Paris.

By Our Representative A two-day national meeting on November 19-20 at the Indian Social Institute, Delhi, with the participation of delegates from 22 states representing over 100 mass organisations has come for forward with the demand for a land use policy from the Government of India in order to “protect” farm land from large scale diversion to non-agricultural purposes like industry and infrastructure.

Greenpeace andriod app to "battle" air pollution By Our Representative In a major relief to Greenpeace India, the Madras High Court has stayed a government order canceling the top environmental NGO’s registration. Staying the order, the High Court observed that the Tamil Nadu Registrar of Societies (RoS) did not follow principles of natural justice.

By Pankti Jog* Abdulla Akelbhai has crossed 70. Yet, he decided to travel all the way from a village called Faikaron Ka Nihaan, from the border areas of Barmer district of Rajasthan to our Saturday legal clinic in Ahmedabad. The Mahiti Adhikar Guajrat Pahel (MAGP) had just returned from its campaign, with Right to Information (RTI) On Wheels, in the area from where Abdulla hails.

Roshan Shah By Our Representative The Gujarat Nagrik Sanghathan, a civil rights organization of Ahmedabad, has filed a public interest litigation (PIL) with the Gujarat High Court, strongly objecting to the State Election Commission’s failure to make public details of candidates, fighting forthcoming local body poll, regarding their criminal antecedents, assets, debts, educational qualifications etc.

Anti-Narmada dam agitation in Madhya Pradesh By Our Representative The final report of the Independent People’s Tribunal on Sardar Sarovar, “Claims and Realities of Development and Rehabilitation”, released in Delhi, says that “thousands of families, especially the tribals, fisher folk and landless poor” have not being given “any alternative place to live”, though the Gujarat government is going ahead with raising the height of the Narmada dam from 121.92 metres to 138.68 metres.

By Our Representative In a move that might embarrass Gujarat’s State Election Commission (SEC) even further, the well-known national election watchdog, Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), has asked SEC chairman Dr Varesh Sinha to immediately upload the affidavits of the candidates contesting Gujarat local body elections on the SEC “for dissemination of information to voters.”

By Fr Cedric Prakash SJ* Never before in the history of post-independent India has “intolerance” become such a subject of heated debate, much divisiveness and which seems to bleed the heart of ‘the idea of India’. Intolerance, one might argue has always existed! We see small and big acts taking place all over society and even in the security of one’s own family. As Indians, we do pride ourselves of being a ‘tolerant people’ and we certainly get very upset when growing acts of intolerance hog the limelight. In a defense reaction, we put on a mask saying “we are not like that”. This was so evident, when a few days ago, a motley group met the President and the Prime Minister ‘to protest’ against those who were saying that India is becoming an intolerant nation! The irony is that this very group was abusive of some of the media present at their protest and they also made very intolerant remarks against those taking a stand against intolerance! In recent months, there have been a spate of...

Anandiben Patel with Amit Shah By RK Misra* More often than not, victory walks in on a bicycle when vanity is sanguinely sailing the skies. The cymbals have ceased and the soldiers are back in their camps: the one to savour success and the other to debate the debacle. But India, after the battle of the ballot in Bihar will never be the same again. A national political realignment has begun. Two crushing blows in a row – Delhi and now Bihar – has the garrulous Narendra Modi government dumbstruck.

Teesta Setalvad By Our Representative Alongside Amnesty International, yet another top global human rights organization has sharply criticized the British government's welcome to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on a three-day visit to London. In a scathing critique of the Britain's red carpet welcome of Modi, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said that latest developments suggest it has “not been the most glorious of times for human rights in British diplomacy”.

UK protest against Modi By Our Representative On the first day of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to London, top human rights organization Amnesty International has said that his British counterpart David Cameron needs to do “more than unfurl the red carpet for yet another world leader.” Allan Hogarth, Head of Policy at Amnesty UK, said, “Cameron must raise some red flags on human rights concerns, too.”

An Australian protest against environmental nod to Adanis By Our Representative In a fresh attempt to target India’s powerful Adani Group, known to be closest to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Environmental Justice Australia and US-based Earthjustice have said they have found a new “evidence” calling into question “the Adani Group's suitability to run biggest coal mine in Australian history.” The coal mine was recently given environmental nod by the Australian government.

By Venkatesh Nayak* In a novel step the Supreme Court of India has created a space for people to give their ideas and views about what needs to be done to reform the manner of working of the Collegium system which has been in existence for several decades. The Collegium comprising of the senior most judges of the Apex Court is responsible for identifying candidates from the Bar and the Bench for elevation as judges of the High Court and the Supreme Court. Earlier, the Apex Court thwarted the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Government’s attempts to replace the Collegium by setting up a National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC). The NDA Government not only pushed through a law for setting up this Commission in Parliament but also got the Constitution amended to enable the establishment of this body. The Apex Court struck down both laws holding them unconstitutional. There are several comments from experts in the public domain both welcoming the judgement or being critical abo...

A demonstration in London against Modi's visit By Our Representative As Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaches England, around 300 historians and social scientists around the world “expressed deep” concern over what they called “recent happenings in India, which are affecting freedom of artistic expression and historical and social science inquiry, and serving to produce a dangerously pervasive atmosphere of narrowness, intolerance and bigotry.”

By Our Representative In an interesting twist to the case filed by an international NGO on behalf of Gujarat’s fishermen and farmers against the World Bank’s private lending arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), which funded a mega power project in Kutch, has reportedly invoked the International Organisations Immunities Act, 1945 of the US for immunity from the “suit and every form of judicial process.”

Narmada dam oustees on protest dharna By Our Representative New facts have come to light suggesting that Gujarat’s Narmada dam oustees, who, it was claimed, had been given the best resettlement package than anywhere in India, are facing eviction. The result is, the oustees have begun protest moves at several places.

By Our Representative The upcoming Gujarat farmers’ organization, Khedut Samaj - Gujarat (KSG), representing thousands of farmers of the prestigious Dholera special investment region (SIR) have, in a memorandum to Gujarat minister Anandiben Patel, said that despite promise made about two years ago, the Gujarat government has “failed” to settle the pending land rights issues of the farmers, who received agricultural plots during the land reforms days of the 1960s.

Nitish Kumar By RK Misra* Mindsets chasing mandates have a maudlin mentality. They put band-aid on a cut finger when seeking power but amputate from the elbow when safely settled. And, all in the name of public interest. Headed by a modern day prime minister elected on a landslide development mandate ,the BJP still needs to fall back on crass communal polarization in the Bihar State Assembly elections, brings out its total bankruptcy of ideas.

By Our Representative In a clear signal that things may not be smooth for Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to Britain next week, well-known expert Dr Kalpana Wilson, a visiting fellow in gender theory, globalization and development at the prestigious London School of Economics (LSE), has noted in a blog on the LSE website that several “campaign organisations, academics and individuals are coming together to protest increasing violence against minority groups” in India.

By Our Representative Less than a week before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s forthcoming visit to Britain, the influential British weekly “The Economist” has said “it is puzzling that in a few short weeks” the government he heads has “alienated not just India’s non-Hindu minorities and its liberal intelligentsia, but broad swathes of domestic and foreign opinion”. It warned , “The ugliness of Indian politics threatens to scupper Narendra Modi’s grand visions.”

By Our Representative The Coalition for Genetically Modified (GM) Free India, the apex body of tens of organizations fighting for promoting organic food, suspects that the recent application made for the approval for commercialization of GM mustard, moved with the apex regulatory body Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC), which is under the Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change, may be accepted.

By Our Representative The US-based independent institute Freedom House's "Privatizing Censorship, Eroding Privacy: Freedom on the Net 2015" has thanked the Supreme Court of India for a slight improvement in India's Internet freedom index from 42 to 40 over the last one year, pointing towards how the apex court struck down "Section 66A of the IT Act in 2015, which had been the cause of several arrests for online speech, particularly on social media".