By Our Representative The tribal district Kinaur has witnessed a huge protest rally against the refusal of the Himachal Pradesh (HP) government for the implementation of Forest Right Act (FRA), 2006. The state government has taken the stand that there is no need to implement FRA, as the issue was “settled” decades ago by the British through the imperial settlement process.

By Rajiv Shah A new report, “Thermal Coal in Asia – Stopping the Juggernaut”, by top international energy consultants, Energy Transition Advisors Pty Ltd, has raised the alarm that India’s fossil fuel subsidies, especially those related with coal, remain a major hurdle in the country’s contribution to achieving climate change target of limiting global warming to 2 degrees centigrade.

By Fr Cedric Prakash sj* Come October 31st 2016: India remembers Sardar Vallabhai Patel who was born on this day in 1875 in Gujarat; he was more famously called ‘the Iron Man of India’. As free India’s first Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister, he worked tirelessly for national integration, fully convinced that groups like the RSS (whom he banned) were doing their best to destroy the unity and secular fabric of the country. Unfortunately, today the ‘powers-that-are’ are doing great disservice to this visionary statesman and of all the values he embodied, by attempting to construct a so-called ‘statue of unity’ (at a scandalous cost and great profits for China), by displacing the poor tribals and destroying the environment and the fragile eco-system. We need to learn from Sardar Patel what unity, integration and service to the country is all about! Come October 31st 2016: On this day, Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India was assassinated in 1984; this heinous deed was condemne...

Rahul Gandhi with Virbhadra Singh By Our Representative Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi is learnt to be unhappy with the party’s Himachal Pradesh (HP) government, led by chief minister Virbhadra Singh, for its “failure” to implement the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006, in the state, even as declaring occupiers on forest land as encroachers.

By Our Representative The World Bank has created flutter by ranking India 130th for ease of doing business in its latest flagship report , “Doing Business Comparing Business Regulation for Domestic Firms in 190 Economies 2017”. This is in sharp contrast to the Narendra Modi government’s announcement two years ago to “improve” India’s rankings among the top 50 by 2018.

By Our Representative According to an Australian media report, the powerful Adani Group, which is in the midst of implementing one of the world's biggest mining projects in the Queensland state, has sough to “gear up public opinion in its favour with ads from the stock images" provided by Gerry Images Inc.

By Venkatesh Nayak* 26-27 October, 2016 mark the commencement of the 70th anniversary of the accession of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) to India. On account of the troubled times that J&K is passing through since July, there is little space for celebrating this event, but a sober commemoration of this historic moment, may not be out of place. The Instrument of Accession (IoA) signed by Maharaja Hari Singh has become the object of a never-ending controversy, unlike accession instruments signed by other princely States. Does it really exist or not? Yes, the J&K IoA exists for real, safe and well preserved in the collection of the National Archives. I have elected to place in the public domain, a copy of the J&K IoA obtained legitimately from the National Archives, for the purpose of facilitating informed debate amongst those interested in the subject. I have also placed in the public domain copies of the IoAs of Mysore, Manipur, Tehri Garhwal and Udaipur obtained from the Natio...

By Our Representative “The Global Gender Gap Report 2016”, released by the high-profile World Economic Forum, has found that while India may have improved its global gender gap ranking from 98th in 2006 to 87th in 2016, things have deteriorated on three of the four factors worked out for arriving at the gender gap index (GGI).

By Our Representative In the latest rule of law index (RLI), worked out by World Justice Project (WJP), a Washington-DC based independent, multidisciplinary organization, has ranked India 66th among 113 countries it has analyzed, far better than all neighouring countries except Nepal.

By Our Representative Fight against genetically modified (GM) mustard is all set to reach streets following a massive dharna at Jantar Mantar in Delhi under the banner of Sarson Satyagraha, in which farmer unions, farm workers unions, trade unions, industry representatives, scientists, women's organisations, right to food campaigners and other civil society organisations joined hands.

Ramona, Apra and Balendu Goswami By Our Representative In an unusual move, Ramona Goswami, whose house was attacked in Vrindavan recently for calling a private meeting of atheists, has sought the urgent intervention of the German Embassy in Delhi for “support” and “protection” of her “human rights” to live in India, so that she is not not harassed by local administration and media on basis her “belief or non-belief.”

By Our Representative A five-person People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) team, which visited the Kashmir Valley to assess the ground situation 100 days after the government "clampdown" and protests has found that, far from being normal, people's “alienation from India”, which has taken the form of “azadi” slogan, is all-pervasive both in cities and villages.

"Netaji: Living Dangerously" being released in Ahmedabad By Rajiv Shah Senior journalist Kingshuk Nag’s "investigation" into the mystery around Subash Chandra Bose’s death in his book “Netaji: Living Dangerously” – whose second edition was released in Ahmedabad on Monday – has revealed that “in all probability Bose was held in a gulag, the massive system of forced labour camps found in Siberia during the time of Stalin.”

In a letter addressed to Justice HL Dattu, National Human Rights Commission, New Delhi, Paryavaran Mitra’s Mahesh Pandya insists on the need on the need to develop a mechanism to assess damage caused to people due to environmental pollution and degradation by industries, causing health hazards and provide compensation to the affected people. The letter has been co-signed by People’s Union for Civil Liberties’ (PUCL’s) Gautam Thaker. Text: *** We are Gujarat-based voluntary organization working in the field of environment and industrial pollution issues. Our main focus is on ecological/environmental imbalance due to developmental projects, social injustice, human rights violations, and tries to resolve these issues. We would like to draw your attention towards the status of Gujarat in terms of environment. CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General of India), in its report submitted in 2015 as well as 2011 regarding Gujarat’s status of CETP (Common Effluent Treatment Plant) has stated that “N...

By Our Representative Civicus Monitor, a global civil society alliance based in Johannesburg, South Africa, in its first-ever online tracking of 104 countries, has noted that the “civic space” in India is being “increasingly constrained because of government interference with the freedoms of association, expression, and peaceful assembly.”

Ten worst cities By Our Representative Arcadis , a leading global design and consultancy firm for natural and built assets, in a new report has ranked Mumbai and New Delhi lowest of the 50 cities it selected for sustainable cities water index in order to identify which cities are best placed to harness water for future success.

By Our Representative As many as 114 academics, lawyers, journalists, writers, artists and poets from the Muslim community have come together to insist that that they are against “instant arbitrary triple talaq as practiced in India”, even as opposing the BJP rulers’ effort to link it with the “need” to adopt a universal civil code (UCC).

By Our Representative In a scathing commentary on Indian media, the influential British weekly The Economist has said that India’s democracy may be “stronger than Pakistan’s”, and “less prone to coups and violence”, with its minorities “more secure” than Pakistan's.

By Our Representative Three left-of-the-centre citizens, top social activist and anti-communal crusader Teesta Setalvad, well-known academic Shamsul Islam and senior journalist Dilip Mandal, have, through a civil application, sought the intervention of the seven judge constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court to look into the crucial issue whether garnering votes on the basis of Hindutva is against India’s basic Constitutional premises.

By Venkatesh Nayak* A few days ago, the media reported yet another gruesome instance of murder of an RTI user in Mumbai. The Mumbai Police are said to have arrested two suspects , including an ex-Corporator, during their investigation of this incident. Scores of RTI users have lost their lives for seeking information of public interest. Hundreds have been attacked, assaulted, harassed and threatened. Not all of them were seasoned RTI activists. Some were seeking information for the first time. So we have categorised them all as RTI users (to differentiate them from other information seekers in general) who have suffered at the hands of vested interests. Our preliminary findings are given below. Hall of Shame: Main findings In a country where the national motto is “satyameva jayate” (truth alone shall triumph), we have found media reports of more than 311 instances of attacks on or harassment of citizens who sought information under The Right to Information Act (RTI Act). Our database...

By Our Representative A confidential report, paid for by the world’s renowned Copenhagen-based shipping giant Maersk, and prepared by one of the most respected consultancies in the shipping industry, Litehauz, has reportedly listed the heavy metals and hazardous chemicals that the ships leak and which can be measured in the environment around the Alang shipbreaking yard in Gujarat.

By Our Representative The Government of India has detected a whopping 20,000 “hidden cases of leprosy” during a massive door-to-door campaign conducted by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare from September 14 to October 4, says a well-researched  report  by a top environmental journal, insisting, this is a cause of great worry.

By Rajiv Shah In a glaring instance of how Prime Minister Narendra Modi, then chief minister of Gujarat, continued justifying the 2002 communal riots more than two months after they began, retired DGP RB Sreekumar has recalled, Modi told him in a one-to-one conversation in that violence by Hindus after the February 27 Godhra train burning was “a natural and uncontrollable reaction and no police could control and contain it.”

WB President Jim Yong Kim and NDB President KV Kamath after signing MoU in September 2016 By Our Representative Amidst the high-profile BRICS summit entering the second day in Goa, two senior experts, Juana Kweitel, Programs Director of  Conectas Human Rights  in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Srinivas Krishnaswamy, CEO of  Vasudha Foundation  in New Delhi, have said that even a year after BRICS launched its New Development Bank (NDB) has failed to be a “tooled” as a “real engine for sustainable development.”

Khurram Parvez By Our Representative India's premier human rights organization, People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) has asked the Government of India to allow the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) to visit Jammu & Kashmir immediately, taking strong objection to blocking attempts by the top UN body to “intervene and inquire” into allegations of human rights abuses by Indian security forces in Kashmir.

By Our Representative The People's Forum on BRICS, which took place in Goa on October 13-14 in Goa, ahead of the high profile summit meeting Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, has urged in a declaration that the BRICS nations should “look at issues of social, economic and environmental justice”, something they have been consistently ignoring.

Suresh Mehta By Our Representative The Gujarat Information Commission (GIC), the state watchdog for right to information (RTI), has told the legal department of the Government of Gujarat must not lie, but admit, without mincing words, that a crucial report containing inquiry into 14 cases of corruption against the erstwhile Narendra Modi administration, is lying with it.

By Our Representative The People’s Forum on BRICS, held at the Xavier’s Centre for Historical Research, Alto Porvorim, Goa (October 13-14), has the governments of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa would come together for their 8th Summit in Goa on October 15-16 “increasingly aligning with capitalist and imperialists forces of the world.”

By Our Representative The traditional owners, fighting against the Adani Group's $15.95 billion mining project in Australia, have told United Nations (UN) Rapporteur Michel Forst that the Indian business giant and the government have used “coercive powers under Native Title and State Development legislation” to acquire their land.

Undernourished population (%) among BRICS nations By Rajiv Shah An India case study , supplementing the report “2016 Global Hunger Index (GHI)”, which ranks India 97th in GHI among 118 countries, has regretted that “by contrast, Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa, all of whom share the BRICS high table with India, have a single-digit score” in undernourishment.

By Our Representative While efforts are underway to whip up national sentiment against China for its “support” to terrorists across the borders in Pakistan, facts have come to light suggesting that the boycott calls to ban on products from China, India’s largest trade partner, are unlikely to succeed.

By Venkatesh Nayak* India’s Right to Information Act turns 12 today (12th October). This is an appropriate moment to test compliance with a June 2016 directive of the Cabinet Secretariat requiring all Ministries and Departments of the Central Government to publish their performance reports on their official website, every month. Our quick survey of the official websites shows, more than 92% of the Central Ministries and more than 82% of the Central Departments have not displayed their monthly performance reports as required by this directive. Background to the Cabinet Secretariat’s transparency directive Under Rule 10 of the Rules of Procedure in Regard to Proceedings of the Cabinet, 1987 , every ministry and department is required to send a report of the work done every month, to the Council of Ministers. These reports are required to be submitted through the Cabinet Secretariat by the 10th of the next month. Such a monthly report may have a classified portion (labelled “top secret”...

By Our Representative A senior right to information (RTI) activist has revealed that his RTI interventions have showed majority of Government of India ministries and departments are refusing to comply with the rule 10 of the Rules of Procedure in Regard to Proceedings of the Cabinet, 1987 , which requires them to send a report of the work done every month to the Cabinet Secretariat.

By Our Representative One of India's topmost conservationists and wildlife experts, Dr MK Ranjitsinh, has said that Phase 1 of the Rs 10,000-crore Ken-Betwa link project – which includes a 230-km canal and a series of barrages and dams linking the rivers – would mean end of the Panna Tiger Reserve of Madhya Pradesh.

Battleground Pampore, off Srinanagar By Our Representative Top US daily “Washington Post” reports, against the backdrop of “suspected militants” taking refuge in government building off Pampore, the saffron rich town in the outskirts of Srinagar, that the latest round of the unrest in the Kashmir valley has prompted India go in for its “biggest crackdown” in decades in the state.

By Fr Cedric Prakash sj* ‘Execution is a terrorist's tool: Stop the cycle of violence’, screams a powerful poster brought out by the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty ( www.worldcoalition.org ) for the World Day against the Death Penalty , October 10, 2016! The focus this year is on ‘terrorism’ and whether the death penalty is actually a deterrent to an act of terrorism. A handout by the Coalition states that, “Since the 1980’s, there has been a global trend towards abolition of the death penalty which continues to this day. Today two-thirds of countries (140) are now abolitionist in law or in practice. However, despite this global trend towards abolition, many governments have in recent years resorted to use of the death penalty following terrorist attacks on their countries, in the name of protecting their countries and peoples.” India has the dubious distinction of being among those countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nigeria that have adopted laws that expanded the ...

By Ashok Shrimali* Chhattisarh tribals’ resistance to coalmining has found strong support from 14 states, whose representatives gathered in Gare village of Tamnar block of Raigarh district to protest against what they described as “corporate loot” of the natural resources. The meeting was organized by Mines, Minerals and People (MM&P), a well-known advocacy group, in association with Jan Chetna, a grassroots organization.

By Fr Cedric Prakash sj* Whew! The first eight days of October 2016, have come and gone! And what a week it was! There were several events, observances, festivals, happenings, meetings at every possible level; it was a week of terrible violence, of inhuman acts; it was pain and suffering for millions the world over, caused by tragedies both man-made and so-called ‘nature’-made. Yet it was a week of hope, of new initiatives, greater commitments. As one looks back these eight days, one can sync the week into eight key – words which are not only rich in meaning but also provide a direction for us today. Family At the heart of every society is family. Today the family as an institution and the values that were sacrosanct in every family, are literally under siege. Pope Francis reminded the world of this during his visit to Georgia. Another wave of migrants drowned in the high seas, in their attempt to flee war and persecution. Families torn asunder for no fault of their own. ‘Ageism’, is g...