Hannan Mollah By Our Representative A Left parties-civil society organizations delegation led by CPI-M politbureau member Hannan Mollah, general secretary of the All-India Kisan Sabha, has told President Pranab Kumar Mukherjee that there is a “brazen attempt” on the part of the Government of Madhya Pradesh to “forcibly evict” thousands of Narmada dam oustees from their villages under the pretext of the Supreme Court order dated February 8, 2017.

Substantial variation in labour force participation rate among states By Rajiv Shah World Bank report, “India Development Update: Unlocking Women’s Potential” (May 2017), notes that an approximate 10 percentage points decline in female labour force participation rate (LFPR) between 2004-05 and 2011-12 has imposed “constraints on a country’s growth”, and is proving to be a “drag on GDP growth” to the tune of 2.6%.

By Fr Cedric Prakash sj* On May 28th 2017 German Chancellor Angela Merkel in an election rally very strongly stated that Germany and Europe could no longer rely on the US under the leadership of President Donald Trump. The next day, her spokesperson reiterated that Chancellor Merkel was right in confronting President Trump during his visit to Europe last week, over the need to tackle climate change. In their meetings with him, the G7 leaders urged Tump not to pull US out of the Paris Agreement on climate change which emphasises the need and importance of cutting down carbon dioxide emissions. The US (under President Obama) together with 194 countries is a signatory to this path-breaking agreement. Scientists and other experts are convinced that the implementation of this agreement is critical if the planet is to have any chance of tackling catastrophic climate change, which is having disastrous effects in so many parts of the globe. Trump has consistently pooh-poohed this ‘agreement’ r

By Our Representative A Fact Finding team by the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR), which visited Shabbirpur village of Saharanpur district of Uttar Pradesh, has said that the recent violence against Dalits in the village should be seen against the backdrop of “a resurgent Dalit community", which was "moving ahead politically, socially and economically.”

By Rajiv Shah An Australian government-sponsored pilot project, meant to create technical awareness for sustainable groundwater use among villagers of two semi-arid regions of Gujarat and Rajasthan, has revealed how, despite huge official claims, water scarcity continues to bog the regions, adversely impacting girl child education in a big way.

By Our Representative The World Bank has raised the alarm that while “the macroeconomic impact of demonetization has been relatively limited”, the informal economy, which makes up 40% of the GDP and employing 90% of India’s workers, is “likely to have been hit especially hard”, even as regretting lack of availability of reliable data on this score.

Under fire: Shambhunath Tundiya, Atmaram Parmar By Our Representative Defying scorching heat, top Dalit activists of Gujarat have planned a series of public meetings across the state starting with June 3 at Zanzarka, about 110 kilometres south-west of Ahmedabad, to protest against the alleged failure of elected Dalit representatives to speak up against the attack on Dalits in Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh.

By Venkatesh Nayak* The Government of India (GoI) signed a peace accord (Naga Accord) with the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland-IM (NSCN-IM) in August 2015 in the presence of the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India. A press release issued by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) called it a “framework agreement” and hinted at releasing the details and the execution plan soon after (2nd attachment). Given the concerns raised by several quarters about continued confidentiality of the contents of the Naga Accord, more than a month later, I filed an RTI application with the PMO seeking the following information under the Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act): “Apropos of the news release dated 03/08/2015 caused to be published by your public authority on the website of the Press Information Bureau (PIB) relating to the signing of the “framework agreement”, between the Government of India and the representatives of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN), I would like to obta

By Our Representative The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), taking a serious view of complaints into unprecedented torture and solitary confinement of 21 undertrials in Bhopal jail, has asked the DIG (investigation) to constitute a team of officers under a senior superintendent of police to conduct an on-the-spot investigation and submit a report at the “earliest”.

Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk By Our Representative In a surprise move, Australian state Queensland’s Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has declared that she is not going to provide concessional loan support to fund the infrastructure for the powerful Indian group Adani’s $16.5 billion Carmichael coalmine in the Galilee basin. Earlier reports said the state government had “agreed” to provide the loan.

By Our Representative Will the Narendra Modi government ever admit that there are some “negatives” in whatever it has done over the last three years? In a surprise move, the Press Bureau of Information (PIB), operating directly under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, in a press note first published negatives along with positives, but finding it too embarrassing removed it from the website.

At the underground water tank By Darshini Mahadevia, Renu Desai, Shachi Sanghvi, Suchita Vyas* In the mid-2000s, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) moved away from in-situ slum upgrading under its Slum Networking Project (SNP) to two inter-related interventions: large-scale slum displacement for urban beautification / infrastructure projects and construction of public housing under Basic Services to the Urban Poor (BSUP) to resettle the displaced households. The BSUP sites, constructed under the Government of India’s Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JnNURM), comprise of four-storey buildings with infrastructures for running water, a toilet and bath, drainage, and electricity in each house, and electricity in the building corridors. At the site-level, there are paved streets, common open spaces, street lights, drainage, and physical structures for social amenities like anganwadis (government-sponsored child-care and maternal-care centres for children in the 0-6 ag

Participants at the mm&P meet By Our Representative A high-level meeting of India’s top advocacy group, mines, minerals and People (mm&P), has decided to represent to President Pranab Kumar Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to implement the concept of "intergenerational equity” to make sure that the next generations are equal shareholders of the natural resources.

A farmers' rally off Ahmedabad led by Sagar Rabari By Our Representative Have the farmers around Ahmedabad city realized that their nod to the Gujarat government proposal to turn their agricultural land into urban hotspots was a major mistake? It would seem so, if meetings held by Sagar Rabari of the Khedut Samaj-Gujarat (KSG) with the farmers of two of the villagers situated about 20 km from the city are any indication.

By Sagar Rabari* In 2009, the Government of Gujarat, through a notification, had brought 68 villages (43 villages of Kalol and 25 from Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar talukas) with a total area of 625 sq km (62,500 hectares) into the Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority (AUDA) boundary. In the beginning the farmers were happy with this since they expected many basic amenities to be made available to them. After eight years, and the situation remaining as it was, the farmers have today realised that it is nothing but another ploy by the government to appropriate their land in the name of ‘development’. While on the one hand their situation has not changed for better, on the other, the merger into AUDA and consequent mutation of their new tenure land into old tenure has brought about a sharp appreciation in the value of their land due to increased jantri rates. The farmers with a large amount of new tenure land have thus had to endure a major financial blow. Panchayati raj institutions have b

Map 1 By Darshini Mahadevia, Renu Desai, Shachi Sanghvi, Suchita Vyas, Vaishali Parmar* Urban beautification and infrastructure projects in Ahmedabad such as the Sabarmati riverfront project, the Kankaria lakefront project and road-widening projects, including for the Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS), have displaced thousands of poor households since the mid-2000s. Many have been resettled in public housing built by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) under the Basic Services to the Urban Poor (BSUP) programme of the Central Government’s Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). Almost half of this BSUP housing is built at seven adjacent sites in Vatwa. (Map 1). AMC allotted flats at three of these sites between 2010-2014. The constrained mobility and stressed livelihoods created by displacement and resettlement to sites like Vatwa is a form of structural violence inherent in the development paradigm adopted in Ahmedabad over the past decade. Four dimensions of urb

Counterview Desk A representation made by four Dalit activists from Gujarat -- Ramesh Babariya, Arvind Khuman, Kishor Dhakhada and Mukesh Vanza -- to the President of India: We undersigned, concerned citizens of Gujarat and India, after visiting Saharanpur, demand to immediately dismiss Mr. Adityanath Yogi’s government in Uttar Pradesh in the wake of complete breakdown of law and order enforcement machinery in the state.

By Rahul Yadav* People displaced due to the Narmada Dam in Gujarat, including farmers, labourers, and potters, took out a bullock carts rally on May 25 in Badwani, Madhya Pradesh, joined by fishmen and women, to protest against the absence of rehabilitation sites, on one hand, and massive corruption in compensation offered to the oustees, on the other.

By Sadhan Mukherjee* Delhi is not just a just a city or the capital of India; it is history itself. Who rules Delhi is important, not only in terms of today but for posterity as well. This is so as there is a conscious attempt to eliminate the past and forget its history. No other existing city anywhere in the world is as old as Delhi. The Pandavas set up their capital here; then called Indraprastha. As the story is narrated in Mahabharata, it dates back to a period of around 3000 BCE. The inner-family war not only ended the Pandava and Kaurava dynasties but also destroyed Indraprastha as well as Hastinapur and the regimes. A more modern Delhi became a citadel of Hindu kings who established their rule in 50 BCE in North India. Delhi was named after Mauryan king Dhillu. Much of Delhi’s ancient history is shrouded in myths and legends, not supported by any evidence except that Delhi today represents continuity and change. Many dynasties have ruled from here: the Nandas, the Mauryas (who

By Our Representative A new report by an Indian-American coalition based in Washington, Alliance for Justice & Accountability, has raised the alarm that that over the last three years of the BJP rule in India, “the ‘upper’ castes’ animosity towards the Dalits and Adivasis” has sharply “extended to Muslims and Christians, who are today India’s second and third largest religious minorities respectively”.

Solid waste site in Surat By Our Representative In a ruling of far-reaching implications, not just for Surat but also for Ahmedabad, the National Green Tribunal (NTG) has asked the Surat authorities in South Gujarat to take a decision and “issue work order for commencing the work of closure of Khajod open dumping site within one month”, even as start working on the action plan for scientific disposal of solid waste.

By Our Representative Estimating that a whopping 4.48 lakh people were displaced in India due to internal conflicts and violence in India last year, a new report, jointly prepared by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) has said that there are 7.96 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the country.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi at AfDB meet on May 23 By Rajiv Shah While there isn’t anything extraordinary for the African Development Bank (AfDB) holding its annual meeting outside the continent, in India, experts believe, through the high profile meet in Gandhinagar, which began on May 22 and ends on May 24, the Government of India is seeking to provide a platform to Indian corporates to invest in African continent, especially in agriculture and mining.

Counterview Desk Advocate Syed Mujtaba Hussian’s letter to the Governor and the Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir, urging them to constitute police complaint authorities at district and state levels, as directed by the Supreme Court, and as established in various states: You are already, I believe, aware of the facts of the matter, which are in public domain, about the cases regarding acts of serious misconduct by policemen/officers of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) Police, such as death in police custody, grievous hurt caused by police, rape or attempt to rape, illegal detention, extortion, land/house grabbing or any serious abuse of authority. Referring to this, the honourable Supreme Court has directed different states to establish police complaints authorities, saying: “There shall be a Police Complaints Authority at the district level to look into complaints against police officers of and up to the rank of Deputy Superintendent of Police. Similarly, there should be anoth

By Our Representative A whopping 1.85 lakh plus people have signed a petition floated by well-known columnist-activist Sucheta Dalal of the Moneylife Foundation asking Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Urjit Patel to intervene in what it calls “unfair treatment that bank customers suffer in the form of frequent, arbitrary and one-sided increase in banking charges.”