Mir Khan By Our Representative Mir Khan, who lives in the Hussainabad resettlement colony off North Gujarat town Himmatnagar, feels like a Muhajir, the term "derogatorily" used for those Muslims in Pakistan who left India soon after partition in 1947. "We started living in the colony after we were forced to leave our residence following the communal violence that erupted 16 years ago, on February 28, 2002, little knowing that we too would treated like Muhajirs, outsiders", he said.

Counterview Desk In a strange disbursement of scholarship meant for deprived sections, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) students from scheduled castes or tribes (SCs or STs), or those blonging to other backward classes (OBCs), studying in TISS are learnt to be "eligible" to availing only the amount at par with other students from their home districts, doing a similar course in a local government college.

By Our Representative Data compiled by several of Gujarat's civil society organizations, who have worked for the rehabilitation of victims of 2002 communal riots, in which about 2,000 people, most of them Muslims, died, have revealed that, as of today, as many as 3,380 displaced families -- or about 17,000 persons -- continue to live in 83 rehabilitation colonies in the state.

By Our Representative Expressing displeasure over the “lackadaisical” way of handling the issue of Qaumi School, an Urdu medium minority school that was razed down during the Emergency, the Delhi High Court on Tuesday asked the Delhi Government, Delhi Development Authority (DDA), Delhi Waqf Board and the Municipal Council of Delhi (MCD)-South to build a school for the 700 odd students who study there in pathetic situation under extremities of unfavourable weather conditions.

By Umesh Babu* The Uttar Pradesh budget papers, presented by the state government in the assembly on February 16, even as suggesting an 11.4% rise in allocations -- from Rs 4,17,257 crore in 2017-18 to Rs 4,56,248 crore in 2018-19 -- have, ironically, also revealed that the total expenditure met during 2017-18 till January 2018 was just 37.91%. It means, till March-end, the government would need to spend 62% of the budget amount.

Biometric machine doesn't recognize this old working woman's hands, and she can't get her ration By Our Representative Thousands of residents of Nagri Block (Ranchi District, Jharkhand) have marched to the Chief Minister’s house on Monday to protest against the Direct Bank Transfer (DBT) for food subsidy, currently under experiment the villages near Ranchi. The experiment is claimed caused havoc in Nagri in the last four months. A recent survey found that 97% of PDS cardholders are opposed to it.

By Our Representative Even as the Yogi Adityanath government has been claiming a huge success in what it calls ‘swacch badmash abhiyan’ (movement to cleanse criminals), a comprehensive report for the based on spot inquiry in the state's "most successful" four districts reveals that, of the 13 cases it examined, "none of those killed ever appeared on the ‘most wanted list’ put out by the IG crime office of the UP police."

By Our Representative In a strong critique of the Narendra Modi government, which is likely to have a major impact on the so-called Christian world, India's national alliance of evangelical Christians has qualified the year 2017 "one of the most traumatic for the Christian community in India since the mass targeted violence of the Kandhamal pogrom in 2007 and 2008" in Odisha.

By Adv Masood Peshimam* The saying goes that there is always a crime behind every big money. Indeed, criminals care a hoot for law as they feel that they can play havoc with justice by purchasing it. They don’t fear the consequences as they know that they can be steered clear of the blame put on them as they have the potential and clout to grease the palm at the right corner. Those becoming rich overnight are least concerned with the devastating effects of their criminal acts, as the same can be neutralized with corrupt means. Muscle power follows money power. The twin power of money and muscle draws its strength from proximity to the political class. In the given situation it’s easy to promote fortunes very fast. The story of rags to riches with an enormous speed reflects deceit, fraud and chicanery. Prominent poet late Zafar Gorakhpuri of Bollywood’s “Bazigar” fame can be quoted here: “Kal tak jo the mere sath bhikh mangne wale, Aaj ek raat me amir kaise ban baithe.” (How is it that

By Asokan Nambazhikkad* The right to dissent is supreme in a democracy. In its essence, democracy exists on the strength of the will of individuals and groups to dissent and disagree. It is this will, which even an individual in the lowest strata of society should be able to exercise, that is being hacked at its roots every day in contemporary India. The government and the political parties which run them are trying to tame dissenters or to suppress them if they cannot; they will even take their life if these attempts fail. Individual liberty and fearless interventions are obstacles to governments to protect their secret interests and to parties to protect their vested interests. Thus individuals, media and small groups which intervene independently and fearlessly against injustice and exploitation in society are perceived as threats by the state. The politics of hatred generated by the Sangh Parivar, which controls the Indian state today, divides and destroys society in various ways.

By Our Representative A joint meeting of civil society and trade union organizations has accused the Government of India of making frenzied attempts of pushing nationalized banks through Reserve Bank of India to take defaulting companies to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), and start bankruptcy proceeding. This, the meet said, is a major reason for a sharp rise in non-performing assets (NPAs) of banks.

By Shaktisinh Gohil* Nirav Modi ("chhota Modi") and Mehul Choksi ("hamare Mehulbhai") have not only siphoned off from India’s banks a sum of Rs 21,306 crore. A new layer of conspiracy has now been unearthed which discloses that India’s middle class and common people have also been duped of Rs.5,000 crore or perhaps more. A complicit Modi Government has even refused to publicly acknowledge this loot. Gitanjali Gems Limited had floated three jewellery investment schemes, i.e. (a) Shagun, (b) Swarna Mangal Labh, and (c) Swarna Mangal Kalash. Modus operandi of the scheme was that an ordinary person, seeking to buy jewellery as also to earn a return on investment, was required to pay 11 installments of a specified amount. In return, the Gitanjali group offered to pay the 12th installment as free. Tenure of these installments could be 12 months, 24 months or 36 months. At the end of the tenure, the amount so accumulated could be redeemed for jewellery with an additional b

By Venkatesh Nayak* During his reply on the Motion of Thanks to the Address of the President of India in the Lok Sabha on 7th February 2018, the Hon’ble Prime Minister, Mr. Narendra Modi compared his Government’s efforts to curb corruption and flush out black money to Swachh Bharat Abhiyan – the nation-wide mission launched to clean up cities, towns, villages and roads, build community toilets and end the practice of open defecation. He drew attention once again to is government’s emphasis on ‘transparency in governance’. Despite the clear signals from the topmost level of the Government, key departments and agencies are failing to abide by this important principle. The Ministry of Finance and one national public finance institute under its control, have both refused to reveal the research reports on black money in the domestic sector under The Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act). More interestingly, the Black Money SIT has claimed that it does not have a copy of the study repo

Ranking for the year 2017 By Our Representative Even as India is shown slipping by two points to the 81st rank among 180 countries from 79th a year earlier, the new Corruptions Perceptions Index (CPI) for 2017 has regretted that the country finds itself in the company of the Philippines and Maldives for being “among the worst regional offenders” where “journalists, activists, opposition leaders and even staff of law enforcement or watchdog agencies are threatened, and in the worst cases, even murdered.”

By Our Representative A new report, “2018 Edelman Trust Barometer”, has said that with an aggregate 13-point decline India has found itself among the six top countries that have experienced one of the highest trust losses among the 28 countries it has analyzed. The calculation is based on India’s trust-level slipping in three of the four categories analyzed – government institutions, media and NGOs.

By Our Representative Prime Minister Narendra Modi may have compared his government's efforts to flush out black money with his Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. But the ministries and departments operating under him appear to believe that reports prepared by them on black money cannot be made public because they were covered under secrecy clauses of the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

By Anand K. Sahay ‘New India’ is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s copyright. It wasn’t in the BJP manifesto in 2014. It is a powerful rubric with which to attract youth power, and harness it. And yet, when nearly four years of the five are done, the best that Modi’s BJP can do to bring the young Indian on board is to cook up the idiotic notion of pakora growth, and pakora politics, when unemployment is rampant among all classes. This little savoury on the snack menu can’t surely be the lead symbol of the Asian century in which India thinks it has a part to play. Vending pakoras can hardly be said to the real meaning of India in the new era. But, surprisingly, Modi believes it does. When questions on rising joblessness were being flung at him, he was far from defensive. His instinctive- and instant and heartless- reply was that making pakoras was also work. It is hard not to be reminded of the vicious mocking tone of Marie Antoinette- the French queen sent to the guillotine by the revol

By Moin Qazi* A dignified aura of its rich past cloaks every corner of Aurangabad, a bustling city in Maharashtra. The crowning minarets that dot the city landscape and the villages around it, dissolve into the mist of history as the lavender of the evening glow envelopes the monuments from which writers extract magical romances for their books. Legends abound of the great kings and saints who once inhabited this land. The ravages of time and the passages of history have slowly driven the chapters of glory into bygone memories. But, in the narrow lanes of Aurangabad, a splendid tradition— of the intricately woven fabric called himroo–still struggles to survive. Enduring the driftwood of history , it is now relived in the houses of narrow lanes, where against the click-clack of the looms, families weave exquisite varieties of this fabric. Himroo is the only surviving relic of the regal past. In its heyday, it found an echo in foreign lands. Hand-woven, it is a traditional Aurangabad

Well-known fashion designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee, who has sold designer merchandise using the label Sabyasachi, and is an associate designer member of Fashion Design Council of India and board member of the National Museum of Indian Cinema, was recently engulfed in controversy following his remark before Indian students at the Harvard India Conference that if women do not know how to wear a saree, they should be ashamed. Mukherjee has designed costumes for Bollywood films such as Guzaarish, Baabul, Laaga Chunari Mein Daag, Raavan, and English Vinglish. Reacting to his remark, Rajni Basumatary, a Bodo woman has written an open letter. Text of the letter: Let me begin by reminding you, saree is not a national garment for women in India neither it is any divinely ordained garment and those of us not proficient in wearing it are not ‘ashamed’ of it. Speaking at the Harvard India Conference, you came out with an outrageous comment, “I think, if you tell me that you do not know how to wea

By Anand K Sahay "But something is happening here and you don’t know what it is Do you, Mr, Jones?"  -- Bob Dylan, 1965  Rulers seldom know what’s happening, do they? They have the intelligence apparatus and their party politicos feeding them whatever the powerful like to hear, but the assessment of the people can be in delicious discord. Atal Behari Vajpayee ordered elections early because his India was shining. He paid the price. Through cries of policy paralysis and corruption, Dr Manmohan Singh went in expecting to be reasonably rewarded. After all, his government had delivered a nearly eight per cent (10 per cent by today’s yardstick) rate of growth over a ten-year period, unprecedented for a democracy. Yet, the result was a shock. What was common between the two governments -- covering a period of about 16 years of elite section boy- scout optimism -- was bubbly talk for much of the time by economists, policy wonks, and the World Bank and the IMF. In the end, the polit

By Rajiv Shah Gujarat budget papers released by the state government in the assembly on Tuesday suggest that while the “developmental” expenditure for the forthcoming financial year, 2018-19, would rise by just about 2.46% over the previous year, 2017-18, the “non-developmental” expenditure, on the other hand, would grow by a whopping 20.2%.

Kurt Vögele By Our Representative Forty-five civil rights leaders, academics and professionals have asked India’s foreign minister Sushma Swaraj to immediately revoke what they call “unceremonious” deportation of veteran ex-Swiss diplomat and an old India hand, Kurt Vögele, from the Ahmedabad airport on January 22, seeking an apology from the government for the “unreasonable” treatment meted out to him.

By Our Representative The Maharashtra government has failed to utilise funds allocated for constructing affordable housing as part of its ambitious plan to curb homelessness from the state. A total of Rs 1,381.95 crore were allocated for the current fiscal year under the Housing For All scheme, out of which 0.444% (Rs 5.001 crore) were spent on housing, while the remaining 99.556% is unspent as on today.

Participants in the CSD rally By Our Representative The tribal rights group Campaign for Survival and Dignity (CSD), Odisha, has revealed that while around 40,000 mainly tribal villages are eligible to get community rights over forests, the state government has “haphazardly recognized” community forest rights of just about 5,964 (14.91%) of them, including 1070 in Kandhamal, followed by Keonjhar (511), Mayurbhanja (414), Kalahandi (185), Rayagarda (178), Malkangiri (74), and Koraput (58) districts.

By Rajdeep Sardesai* One good thing in the often joyless times in which we live is the flowering of satire and cartooning on social media (yes, RK Laxman's legacy is alive and kicking) For the last week, my whatsapp has been buzzing, not so much with breaking news, as with 'breaking jokes'. Every few minutes there is a new Nirav Modi joke that enters my inbox which is then almost instantaneously shared with friends and 'contacts' since we all need a break from the tedium of our lives. Most of the jokes have a distinct Narendra Modi angle to them.  Now, it is purely coincidental that the latest swindler in town shares a surname with the prime minister and with another famous fugitive, but it clearly isn't a happy coincidence (bloody hell, even the acronym NiMo is all too uncomfortably close for comfort to NaMo). As the latest joke goes: 'the Congress gave us five Gandhis in 60 years, while the BJP has given us three Modis in four years so the BJP wins on the

Manish Tiwari By Our Representative In a surprise move, the Congress has demanded that the 2019 Lok Sabha elections should be held with ballot paper, and not Electronic Voting Machine (EVM). Addressing a civil society-sponsored meeting in Delhi, party spokesperson Manish Tiwari said, "EVM machines are destroying the trust between the voter and the democratic system. Democracy is too precious to be left to the machines."

By Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd* and John Wesley** The Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s chief Mr.Mohan Bhagwat says that the RSS as a military network (of the Brahminic forces) can move to the borders to protect the nation within three days while the Indian Army ( multicultural, multi-caste and secular force) will take six months. This is not only dangerous statement of the ISIS kind, but it has serious life implications to all Shudras/OBCs/Dalits and Adivasis. It has very serious implications to the Social Justice agenda that is in operation because of the Ambedkarite Constitution. When the RSS head says its army will go to the borders that means it has already acquired major war weapons into its fold and it has trained its forces. The nation can imagine what they are up to now. This is a massive private army existing in the nation now. The RSS is a Hindu fundamentalist organization like the ISIS is a Muslim fundamentalist organization. Both of them believe in capturing the nations through thei

By Mousumi Roy* Heartiest Congratulations to the Government of India. They have allowed the second billionaire who has done the biggest fraud of India to leave the country. Where are those who are charged with the responsibility of keeping an eye on the financial institutions in the country, like the revenue intelligence wings in Banks, RBI, ED and others? Why the Government of the day did not act on the basis of complaints sent by certain individuals or in some case even by Director of Allahabad Bank? When the RBI conducts its audit of the Bank finances how could they not detect it? Scam after scam no one knows what happened, why it happened and how to plug it? No learning, no analysis and also no one to blame except the invisible and dumb system. What a sad state of inequality, fraud and nepotism in one of the largest sham democracies in the world which is being looted by just 100 odd billionaires and politicians on a daily basis while hundreds of millions have no food, no toilet, no

Counterview Desk A new study “Expanding Tradable Benefits of Trans-boundary Water: Promoting Navigational Usage of Inland Waterways in Ganga and Brahmaputra Basins”, has raised the alarm that any changes in their water flow from growing shipping and navigation will affect the livelihoods of the nearly 1.3 million farming households and tens of thousands of fishing households dependent on the rivers.

Jharkhand officials "testing" biometric system for PDS By Our Representative A recent survey, carried out by student volunteers in the Nagri block in the outskirts of Ranchi, capital of Jharkhand, has found that a huge 97% of the sample households have opposed Direct Bank Transfer (DBT) against the subsidies they should be getting by using the public distribution (PDS) system ration shops. The survey was coordinated by well-known academic Jean Dreze   and researcher Nazar Khalid .