Counterview Desk “Failure” to maintain what is called “environmental flow” in the downstream of Narmada river is leading a major ecological disaster in South Gujarat, with salinity ingress affecting the river till about 72 km upstream of mouth of the river in Gulf of Khambhat. A petition filed with the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has estimated that the failure has resulted in tidal effects being felt 100 km upstream.

By Firoz Bakht Ahmed* The dargah (shrine) of Hazrat Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti is a revered shrine amongst Muslims and Hindus alike. It is said that barren wombs sprout life and stubborn ailments disappear, if the faithful prays at the shrine. But it wasn’t this aspect that overwhelmed me about the shrine during the last Ramzan. It was that the iftari (material for breaking fast) that was not only prepared but even shared by the Hindu brethren living in the area. Accompanying me was Malini Khatri, a senior English teacher of Modern School who had come to Ajmer with her students for participating at a debate at Mayo College. It was indeed touching the way I noted Sunil Dutt of Dilli Durbar Guest House at Ajmer distributing the usual khajur (date palm), pakodis (snacks), kachalu (mixed fruit) and food at the shrine to all. Assisting him was Kamal Tilvani, another Sindhi hotel owner from Ajmer. At the time of iftar, some white skull capped Muslims, turbaned non-Muslim Rajasthanis and ...

Little Rann of Kutch during monsoon By Rajiv Shah If Kalpasar, a dream project of converting the Gulf of Khambhat into Asia’s biggest sweet water lake by constructing a dam connecting South Gujarat and Saurashtra coasts, does not seem feasible any more, why not toy with the idea of yet another having a still bigger sweet water lake – this time in the Little Rann of Kutch? Suspicion has gone strong: Ahead of the 2019 polls, the BJP is all set to make a 4,900 sq km Rann Sarovar an electoral plank.

Charles Ponzi By Moin Qazi* In 1919 Charles (Carlo) Ponzi, a clerk in Boston, suckered Americans with a scheme that is now identified with his name. At a time when interest rates stood at 5 percent, Ponzi offered investors a 50 percent return in just 45 days. The pitch was to buy postal coupons -- used for buying foreign stamps, in a particular country, and then capitalize on exchange rate differences by redeeming them at a profit in the US. Ponzi only bought a handful of stamps. But he kept the scam going by robbing from Peter to pay Paul. Interest for early stage investors was paid out of funds from new investors and thus, he formed a cycle. The Italian immigrant coaxed thousands of people into sinking millions of dollars .Ponzi fleeced investors worth at least $15 million — or about $190 million in today’s dollars — over the course of just eight months before his scheme finally crashed in 1920. Ponzi scams keep coming back because it is so lucrative and so easy to do in di...

Mevani speaking at the seminar By Our Representative Worry appeared writ large of a large number of left-of-centre intellectuals, who had gathered for a three-day India Inclusive seminar, held at the Constitution Club, Delhi, last week, with most of them suggesting how the ruling BJP and the Sangh Parivar were successful in creating a xenophobic atmosphere, suggesting there was little possibility things might change ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

By Moin Qazi* Does a career in the Indian civil service mean a life of ‘public service’? It is a puzzling question given the sloth and thickets of red-tapism that have eroded the bureaucracy. Moreover, the way events have been unfolding, most will tend to agree that all it means is a lifetime of serving the most despicable lot of politicians ever to be found in the world. It means a career that will rub out your individuality, dull your intellect, and corrupt your morals. You will enter a fine young person; you will retire as someone you yourself will not be able to recognise, barring of course, a few courageous exceptions. Many idealised youngsters begin their careers with loads of ambition and a stock of dreams, waiting to dazzle the world with brilliance, confident that the corner office is theirs for taking. Most enter the profession fired up with noble visions and a sense that the multiple and manifest deprivations, injustices, double-dealings in their society can be allevia...

By Sheshu Babu After Independence, India adopted the policy of non-alignment under the Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. While the prime motive was non-interference, India always supported the cause of Palestinians in UN and also in WHO till 2016. It voted in favour of Palestine in almost every resolution. The year 2017 was the first occasion when India abstained from voting on the Palestine issue clearly from the orders of New Delhi, given the Government's current growing strategic and economic relation with Israel. India was among 20 countries, which abstained during a vote on 'draft decision' on May 23, proposing to support Palestinians in their endeavor to provide health services in the present conflict ridden situation. Discussion on the issue was part of the agenda in World Health Assembly, the WHO annual global level event in Geneva taking place this year (May 21 -26). The draft decision titled 'Health conditions in the occupied Palestine Territory inclu...

Archbishop Anil Couto By Fr Cedric Prakash sj* There has been so much happening in India in the recent past and particularly, this past week. The country today sits on a tinderbox; waiting to explode at any moment; no one can deny this! A cursory glance around will make one realise the abysmal depths to which the country has plummeted to, during these last four years! On 22 May, the brutal gunning down of anti-Sterlite protestors by the Tamil Nadu police in Thoothukudi is a blatant example of a repressive State machinery. More than eleven people were killed and many more injured, in an authentic peoples movement with legitimate demands. The powers that rule the country are clearly identified with the corporate mafias who care two hoots about the rights of the poor or environmental safeguards. In the aftermath of the results of the Assembly elections in Karnataka on 15 May, the country witnessed the unprecedented act of a Governor throwing all Constitutional propriety to the wi...

By Rajiv Shah Even as regretting that investment in India is failing to pick up, in its latest report on four years of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government, Crisil, India's leading rating agency, has lamented that things have been worse for the country's rural sector, which, it has said, "has been riddled with challenges including slower agricultural growth, poor farm price realisation, slowdown in construction activity, and sluggish rural wage growth."

By Firoz Bakht Ahmed* As far as Muslims of India are concerned, two recent incidents not only alarmed and hurt the nation but let this patriotic community down. The most recent is the diatribe of Maulana Haseeb Siddiqui of Deoband’s Muslim Bank who openly declared the opposition to unite against Modi and vote for the so-called secular party. The other ghastly incident was the adamancy of the AMU (Aligarh Muslim University) students not to remove Jinnah’s photograph from their students’ union office. Had these people followed Bharat Ratna Maulana Abul Kalam Azad’s path of interfaith concord and the lesson of gelling Hindus and Muslims for the larger good of India, they would not have done this. Unfortunately, the atmosphere is charged unnecessarily on behalf of both communities on petty issues, sometimes taking the form of communal riots. Dividing on religious lines Whatever Maulana Haseeb stated just before the Kairana, UP election, or the transgression on the part of the AMU...

By Adv Masood Peshimam Riots in our country are routine. The allegedly partisan role of the police is routine. Delegates of different hue and colour feverishly rushing to the concerned authorities is routine. Authorities assuring that the guilty would not be spared is routine. Concerned authorities promising to set up inquiry committee to probe the multiple reasons contributing to the growth of communal violence is routine. No consequent follow up is also routine. On top of it the guilty remaining immune from punishment many a time, particularly the law enforcers, too, is routine. Following the recent outbreak of communal violence in Aurangabad in Maharashtra, there have been allegations of police supporting the violent crowd to target Muslims, with the administration failing to take preventive measure to halt the drift in the law and order situation. There are allegations of indiscriminate arrest of innocent Muslims. Against this murky scenario Muslim MLAs had an audience...

An NRC office in Assam By Our Representative Will a whopping 20 lakh Assamese be declared foreigners? In a significant blog , senior Guwahati lawyer Aman Wadud, referring to the May 2, 2018 order of the State Coordinator of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) – signed by Prateek Haleja, IAS, in charge of home and political department, and state coordinator of NRC – has apprehended that stage has been already prepared exactly for this.

By Our Representative Starting along the banks of Narmada river off the Sardar Sarovar dam in Gujarat, the dam affected people of three states – Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra – will begin a week-long on May 27. Seeking to highlight the plight the displaced people, the march will reach Madhya Pradesh capital

By Moin Qazi* The world’s great philanthropist and investment leader, Warren Buffett, once said, “It’s only when the tide goes out that you realise who has been swimming naked”. When the banking system hit the rocks and the tide turned, the naked were caught disrobed. Similarly, sometimes it takes a pitch-black economy to reveal who and what in the financial firmament really shines. It is only when darkness falls that one can see the stars twinkle. The moonlight coming from the otherwise bleak sky of the financial world, has been made possible thanks to honest taxpayers, who are transfusing precious blood to the currently bleeding banks. The current crisis in the Indian banking sector led to calls for privatisation of public sector banks (PSB). However, the private sector is no paragon of great virtue. The huge crowds that throng public banks and put up with various inconveniences indicate the enormous faith that the public has in these banks. The challenge today doesn’t involve provid...

By Rajiv Shah India may have sharply increased the number of bank accounts following Prime Minister Narendra Modi coming to power. However, regrettably, India has the largest share of inactive accounts, too. A just-released World Bank survey, which provides this crucial detail alongside several others, says, "Account owners with an inactive account varies across economies, but it is especially high In India."

Counterview Desk The All-India Union of Forest Working People (AIUFWP) statement on refusal of Ahmedabad sessions court to grant anticipatory bail to social activist Teesta Setalvad: The All India Union of Forest Working People strongly condemns the denial of anticipatory bail to noted human rights activist and Journalist Teesta Setalvad. Teesta Setalvad is vice-president and legal advisor of AIUFWP. The Union will fight against the curbing of human rights and democratic rights and will launch a nation wide struggle to fight for justice. The union will unite all the struggles that is going on in the forest area against the atrocities and denial of justice to the forest people with this case. The struggle will continue till we win and establish the truth. Ahmedabad Sessions Court turned down the Anticipatory Bail Application (ABA) of the Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) secretary and acclaimed human Rrghts defender Teesta Setalvad and her partner Javed Anand. However, an undet...

By Bhaskar Sur* More than a decade back Rajni Kothari, the eminent Liberal political thinker, had to concede that the Indian state had lost its independence and was under the thumb of big corporates. Since then corporates have tightened their grip over the levers of the state. No Prime Minister so shamelessly acted as an ambassador of Reliance and Adani, and demeaned the chair as Narendra Modi. Vedanta enjoys favour from across the political spectrum and for understandable reasons. At Tutirocone their factory is polluting the air and the sea, endangering the lives and livelihoods of many. Vedanta got away with its enormous crimes for years, simply by bribing those in power. The popular rage was natural as it was the hundredth day of their agitation. It was against the stony indifference of a bribed and paralysed administration that kills. Bobby Kunhu , a legal activist, presents the picture with stark clarity and without any sentimentalism .This can only be written by someone w...

By Lubna Sayed Qadri* A pertinent question, as the NDA government completes four years in office, is: Has it kept up to the promises it made to the people of India? "Citizens’ Report on the Fourth Year of the NDA Government 2018: Promises and Reality" is an anthology of reviews brought out after due consultation and inputs by the civil society and the citizen of the country by Wada Na Todo Abhiyan (WNTA) a platform of over 4,000 civil society organisations and individuals with its core focus on ‘governance accountability to eliminate poverty and social exclusion’. The report has reviewed the electoral and other promises and performance of the NDA government in the last four years. The Annual Citizens’ review of the Union Government and its promises to the people is a continuum of previous such reports – beginning from the first review of the UPA I government held in 2005. This year report has been accompanied with short, mobile-friendly audio-visual clips on thematic ...

"Babri Masjid: 25 Years On" was published as a Special Issue by the Indian Journal of Secularism in 2017 to commemorate 25 years of the demolition of the Babri Masjid. The book has multiple narratives — eye-witness accounts, essays on the political events that led upto the demolition, the riots that followed, and how different sections of soceity were affected by it, how they reacted, how they dealt with it. The book has been edited by Sameena Dalwai and Ramu Ramanathan. The following extract is from the chapter “Countdown to Ayodhya” by Anant Bagaitkar: The year was 1992 and the month was July. It was autumn. Monsoon session of the Parliament was on. The PV Narasimha Rao-Congress government was grappling with the Ayodhya issue. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and all the other linked Hindu organisations had made a declaration for the kar seva (offering service for a religious cause) at the disputed site at Ayodhya – a 2.7-acre plot where th...