Ankush Vengurlekar By Our Representative In a hair-raising account of nuclear poisoning, Ankush Vengurlekar, a freelance communications trainer to non-profits, on a 900-kilometre solo cycling expedition to the tribal regions of Jharkhand, finds what he calls "cancer of denial, apathy and evading responsibility of the radiation pollution" in the tribal village of Bango.

By Our Representative The civil society-sponsored “campaign for prohibition and addiction free India”, Nashamukt Bharat Andolan, has asked the Government of India (GoI) to “incentivise” states for implementing prohibition and compensate any revenue loss, insisting, the demand is only a “natural extension of the fight against corporate loot of resources and labour.”

By Rajiv Shah Some of the world’s top institutes favouring free market have got together to declare that well-known UK-based NGO Oxfam’s latest report “An Economy for the 99%”, which claims that eight richest men in the world, between them, have the same amount of wealth as the bottom 50% of the world’s population, is “misleading”.

By Fr. Cedric Prakash sj* January 30th 1948 will remain etched forever in the conscience of the nation. On that fateful day at evening prayer, Mahatma Gandhi fell to the bullets of his assassin Nathuram Godse, in Delhi. Godse represented the fascist, fanatic, fundamentalist and ‘feku’ forces, which abhorred the values for which Gandhi, espoused all his life and particularly the idea of an inclusive, pluralistic and secular India. These forces unfortunately are still very alive in India and in several parts of the world today! There are certainly those who disagreed with Gandhi during his lifetime and there are many who disagree with his philosophy and his methodology even today. Nevertheless, few will be able to contest the fact that Gandhi was a man of principles who lived and died for a cause. His life was frugal and exemplary and unlike several politicians today, he did not care leave alone crave, for the privileges and the trappings of power. In his lifetime, he internalized and pr...

Bela Bhatia By Our Representative A group of 35 well-known activists led by Narmada Bachao Andolan’s Medha Patkar and Magsaysay award winning right to information campaigner Aruna Roy have said that Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh’s assurance of safety following the recent attack (click HERE to read) on top academic Bela Bhatia has not followed with "any strong action".

The spot demanded by Kashmiri Pandits as homeland By Our Representative A deep rift appears to have occurred between the BJP-backed Mehbooba Mufti government of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) and Kashmiri Pandits. Panun Kashmir, the top organization representing internally displaced Pandits, has described the J&K government decision to offer them 100 acres land only an effort to “rub salt on the Hindu wound.”

Jadeja By Our Representative Failure of the Gujarat government to create an online portal to file right to information (RTI) applications as it exists for the Government of India for the last four years has started becoming a major issue with the state’s top activists, who have started a sustained campaign for it, citing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s strong support to online payment following demonetization.

Prof Irfan Habib By Our Representative Veteran historian Prof S Irfan Habib has taken strong exception to what he calls efforts to drag into controversy one of India’s topmost nationalist icons – Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose – by those who have little to with him – or with his "politics during the freedom struggle.”

Women pay homage to four Dalits massacred on January 25, 1986 in Golana village of Central Gujarat By Our Representative Scores of poor people from several towns and villages gathered in Gujarat's Surendranagar town on Wednesday to protest against the cancellation of foreign funding license of Gujarat’s most well-spread-out Dalit rights NGO, Navsarjan Trust, taking strong exception to the reason for the Government of India order -- “undesirable activities of the association detrimental to national interest.”

By Our Representative In a major setback to the Madhya Pradesh (MP) government, which had been offering cash compensation against the land lost by the oustees of Gujarat’s Narmada dam, the High Court’s Indore bench has ruled that those who had received the first cash installment would be entitled to land compensation.

By Fr. Cedric Prakash sj* In the significant move, the Union Cabinet in 2011, under the stewardship of the then Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh, decided to celebrate January 25th as ‘National Voters’ Day’, which is also the anniversary of the foundation of the Election Commission of India (ECI). The significance of the day is to encourage many more young voters to take part in the political process.

By Venkatesh Nayak* The dust has not yet settled on the demonetisation drive though more than 75 days have lapsed since the Government announced the pathbreaking ‘notebandi’ decision in November, 2016. People continue to queue up before banks and ATMs for that elusive trickle of cash, though media reports say the queues are growing shorter. People’s hardship in rural areas is rarely getting much attention in the national media as most cameras and eyes are focused on bulls and how they are or must be treated. Thankfully, there is some gender balance now because more attention was showered on cows during the last couple of years. That is some progress! International financial institutions and rating agencies are downgrading the economy’s growth forecast. In between there was some clamour for transparency of the transactions of political parties. The Hon’ble Prime Minister seized the initiative and called upon the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to lead by example and spoke in favour of revi...

By Darshan Desai* [Gandhi] spins every day for 1 hr. beginning usually at 4. All members of his ashram must spin. He and his followers encourage everyone to spin. Even M. B-W was encouraged to lay [aside] her camera to spin. . . . When I remarked that both photography and spinning were handicrafts, they told me seriously, “The greater of the 2 is spinning.” Spinning is raised to the heights almost of a religion with Gandhi and his followers. The spinning wheel is sort of an Ikon to them. Spinning is a cure all, and is spoken of in terms of the highest poetry... These are the type-written notes that accompanied legendary photojournalist Margaret Bourke-White’s eternal picture of Mahatma Gandhi on his spinning wheel (mimicked now by Narendra Modi) that she sent to the LIFE magazine in 1946. Her few words speak of the depth of a journalist who could capture the soul of the Mahatma and his ideology in just one shot. Cut to 2017. Two poor journalists on a self-fashioned Times Now debate wer...

State Election Commission chairman Varesh Sinha By Pankti Jog* Mehulbhai Rathod of Aniyali (Kasbati) of Botad district was one of the candidates for the village panchayat elections, held in Gujarat in December last week. He claims to have observed that some residents of his village had voted twice -- in Anilyali as well as in the neighbouring Ranpur. He meticulously worked to prepare a list of 14 such names, who allegedly voted at two different places.

By Our Representative Anti-nuclear protests against the proposed Kovvada nuclear plant in Andhra Pradesh are all set to acquire a new momentum in South India following the decision of the local people to join hand with national-level activists of People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE), National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM), National Alliance of Anti-Nuclear Movement (NAAM), Human Rights Forum and Sanjeevini Paryavarana Seva Sangham.

By Our Representative Is Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a “vulnerable position” vis-a-vis the powerful newspaper industry following his demonetization “misadventure”? It would seem so, if one believes in what a top trade unionist representing journalists' cause for higher pay for print media has to say.

Under threat: A Navsarjan school in Surendranagar district By Our Representative Following US’s powerful daily “The New York Times” objecting to the Modi government cancelling foreign funding license to Gujarat’s topmost Dalit rights organization (click HERE ), Navsarjan Trust, another influential daily, “Los Angeles Times” (LAT), has termed the action a part of the wider government “crackdown against civil society” and “dissent.”

By Rajiv Shah Data provided by the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2016 not only suggest that girl child education remains a major hurdle in rural Gujarat (click HERE ), widely regarded by Government of India as a “model” state for other states to follow. Gujarat is found to be behind a large number of states even in learning levels at the primary level.

By Rajiv Shah The 11th Annual Status of Education Report (ASER 2016), released in Delhi, has revealed that Gujarat, a model state for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, remains one of the poorest performers in enrolling girls in rural schools, both at upper primary and secondary level.

A Gujarat tribal village By Our Representative A well-entrenched Gujarat tribal rights group, Ekalavya Sangathan, has said that the state government has so far recognized just 40.42% of the tribal claims for land out of a total of 1.83 lakh applications okayed by tribal village councils for regularizing forest land. The rest of the 59.68% “stand rejected”.

Modi at Vibrant Gujarat summit, 2017 By Rajiv Shah Experts attached with Reliance Industries Ltd's (RIL's) thinktank have strongly advocated “federalization of foreign policy” for India, insisting, globalization has “eroded traditional boundaries”, and “the Central government by itself is not well-equipped to meet the challenges posed by new political, economic and social forces.”

Panchmahals Dalit group which submitted memorandum By Our Representative Taking strong exception to cancellation of Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) license to well-known Gujarat-based Dalit rights NGO Navsarjan Trust, Dalit activists from several districts in Gujarat have sent memorandums to President Pranab Kumar Mukherjee terming the step an effort to “bully the organization into silence, motivated by an anti-Dalit agenda.”

By Rajiv Shah In one of the sharpest critiques of air pollution in the recent past, a fresh report has said that air quality levels in urban India between 2010 and 2015 deteriorated by 13% at a time when these improved by 17% in China. The pollution levels improved in the US by 15%, and 20% in European Union (EU), it reveals.

By Sadhan Mukherjee* There is clear indication that fascist forces, you may call them rightist forces, if you like, are growing world over. It is better to be forewarned than regret later. One may recall that in Europe, which has given both liberal and fascist ideas, the ascendancy to power of fascist forces became possible due to three main reasons. First, weak governments being in office; second, the economic disaster that followed the first world war; and third, lack of people’s vigilance who became unconcerned about who their rulers are or who comes to rule next; they wanted only respite from their daily agonies of survival. In Italy, Benito Mussolini captured premiership by marching on Rome with his 30,000 black shirts in 1922. BY 1925, he had announced he would be leader for life, and no one challenged him or could challenge him. Hitler followed suit in Germany. He had the additional advantage of having a well organised party – the NSDAP or the Nazi party, which using its muscles...

Justice Shah By Our Representative Former Delhi High Court judge, Justice AP Shah, has in a letter to the chairperson, Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), said that documents seized in the bribery and corruption in the by now well-known famous Sahara-Birla payoffs case are a “clear evidence" of systematic bribery of politicians, including several Chief Ministers and public servants by these business groups.

By Our Representative Prime Minister Narendra Modi may have declared recently that people have a right to know where BJP’s funds are coming from, with media reports indicating that the Government of India may be working on a legislation to make the source of funding of all political parties “more transparent.”

By Venkatesh Nayak* Addressing a meeting of the national executive of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which concluded recently in New Delhi, the Hon’ble Prime Minister is reported to have declared: “ People have a right to know where our funds are coming from .” Media reports indicate that the Central Government may be working on a legislation to make the source of funding of all political parties more transparent. An economic resolution reportedly adopted at this meeting endorsed the Hon’ble PM’s appeal for transparency in political party funding , particularly election campaign financing. While this resolution itself is not available on the BJP’s official website, the salient features containing the Hon’ble PM’s transparency call to the party are uploaded there. Celebrating the 41st anniversary of the judicial recognition of people’s right to know These path breaking public statements have come less than 20 days before the 41st anniversary of the Supreme Court’s finding about the p...

By Our Representative In strongly-worded editorial   on demonetization, influential America daily, “The New York Times” (NYT), has said, there is “little evidence that the currency swap has succeeded in combating corruption or that it will forestall future bad behaviour once more cash becomes available.”

NBA campaign against "illegal" sand mining By Our Representative The Madhya Pradesh government has arrested two senior tribal rights activists, Rahul Yadav and Pavan Yadav, attached with the well-known anti-dam movement, Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), as they reportedly tried to take objection to “illegalsand mining in Narmada riverbed in Badwani district.

Prashant Bhushan By Our Representative The Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms (CJAR), led by top anti-corruption crusader, Supreme Court advocate Prashant Bhushan, has taken strong exception to the Government of India (GoI) rejecting 13 names recommended as judges for the Allahabad High Court by the Supreme Court collegiums.

Vladimir Putin with Modi By Our Representative “The New York Times” (NYT) has compared Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s actions of seeking to ban  foreign funding of several civil society organizations with actions of world’s two “illiberal strongmen” – Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose governments “regularly use imprisonment, threats and nationalist language to repress NGOs.”

By Venkatesh Nayak* Readers may recollect my despatches from September and December 2016 describing my efforts to find out details about the sale and the efficacy of anti-riot weapons- particularly, pellet guns, which have caused severe injuries to hundreds of youth in various parts of Jammu and Kashmir. Both the Central Public Information Officer (CPIO) and the First Appellate Authority (FAA) of the Khadki Ordnance Factory (OFK) rejected my request for information about the quantum of sale of anti-riot weapons such as pellet guns to security personnel on grounds of national security and commercial confidence. The FAA clearly stated in his order that OFK was not manufacturing the pellet guns being used by security agencies across the country but only the ammunition. He also held that OFK did not have any reports about the efficacy of such ammunition, especially, their impact on human beings. Now the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) which actually uses such weapons for dealing with ...

Allahabad High Court Counterview Desk Statement by Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms: 2016 marked a year of abrasive disagreement between the judiciary and the government especially over the issue of judicial appointments. While both the judiciary and the government may have us believe that transparency in the working of public functionaries is critical in a democracy, it is ironic that there has been complete opacity from both these institutions where disclosing a draft of the memorandum of procedure for appointments to the High Court and Supreme Court is concerned. This process has been shrouded in secrecy, excluding public participation in this crucial process. Repeated requests from the Campaign for a draft of the memorandum to be shared as well as a Campaign draft memorandum sent to the government and the judiciary, have received no response. The efficient functioning of the judiciary rests on steady and regular appointments. These appointments have be...

By Our Representative Following Swati Chaturvedi’s book “I Am a Troll”, which created unprecedented flutter for pointing out how the social media cell of BJP would spread hatred, yet another ex-BJP volunteer has declared how the cell worked for continuously  spreading online “hate directed at minorities, some journalists, and anyone else who has opposing views”.

By Venkatesh Nayak* Print and electronic media have highlighted the plight of a young woman who approached the New Delhi office of the Reserve Bank of India to change some demonetised currency notes that she had. Apparently the security personnel did not even allow her to enter the RBI office premises. A police officer is said to have commented on the torn state of the currency notes that this daily-wager carried with her, which was why she was not allowed to enter the building. Exasperated, the woman is said to have stripped down in protest in front of her son while a bystander recorded the entire event on his mobile and circulated it in cyberspace. According to media reports, this was not her first attempt to exchange her old notes at RBI’s Delhi office. If this version is a true record of what happened, it is extremely disturbing that the security personnel tried to usurp the role of the RBI officials who are the only competent authorities to allow or refuse demonetisation related...