Suggestions/amendments sent by the All India Save Education Committee (AISEC), in its on the recently-released Draft National Policy on Education (NEP) sent to Union minister for human resource development Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’: The all-India meet organised by the All-India Save Education Committee (AISEC) at Gujarat Vidyapith, Ahmedabad, on July 28, 2019, in which representatives of more than 15 states actively participated, univocally opines that the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) should not be in a haste to take decisions on such an important issue like education. The ultimate dateline for the submission of amendments, recommendations and suggestions should be extended for at least three months, if not more, and there should be consultation with all major teachers’ and principals’ organisations, students’ and parents’ organisations, educationists of national repute and with the scientific community. The all-India meet of AISEC differs with the views of the Kas...

By Rajiv Shah  Amidst apprehensions that the Government of India’s new labour codes, tabled in Parliament recently, are driven by the interests of the industry in order to “alter” the labour protection landscape in India “beyond repair and reclaim”, facts have come to light suggesting that “model” Gujarat has been one of the worst states in the country as far as providing any form of protection to its workers is concerned.

Counterview Desk The civil rights network Jan Swasthya Abhiyan (JSA) has demanded from the Union health ministry that it should ensure there is “no dilution” in patients’ rights, insisting, the ministry should adopt the charter on patients’ rights based on the recommendation to the ministry by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) last year.

By Our Representative Addressing media in Delhi, Ambarish Rai, national convener of the Right to Education (RTE) Forum, commenting on the draft New Education Policy (NEP), has regretted “poor implementation of the RTE Act, 2009 despite nearly 10 years of its enforcement.” He said, public investment on education has been going down, and should immediately be “reversed” to at least 6% of GDP. Welcoming the draft NEP, he said, inclusion of 3-18 years in the RTE Act “has been our long-standing demand”, but expressed disappointment over “increasing privatisation of education”, even as objecting to sharp reliance on corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds and philanthropic institutions. Prof Muchkund Dubey, former chief secretary and president, Council for Social Development, said, while “elementary education is now a fundamental right”, increasing reliance of volunteers through programmes like Remedial Instructional Aids Programme (RIAP) and National Tutoring Programme (NTP) “will lead...

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* The Unnao story is the failure of the Indian system and deep-rooted corruption and nepotism inside it. The girl was fighting a lone battle over a year, especially after she accused Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Kuldip Singh Sengar of raping her. The party did not bothered to take any action against Sanger. And it is equally surprising that, in the city of Unnao, nothing appears to have happened.

Amit Jethva By RK Misra* The conviction of an MP for murder by the CBI court in Ahmedabad reveals how the rich and powerful get away with heinous crimes unless the judicial system works as it should. “Not only must justice be done; it must also be seen to be done”, or so goes an old saying.

By Our Representative The National Campaign for Peoples’ Right to Information (NCPRI) has claimed that thousands of people have petitioned the President of India asking that he should not give his assent to the Right to Information (RTI) Amendment Bill, 2019, even as there were massive protests in Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan and West Bengal. On Monday, hundreds protested at Jantar Mantar in Delhi. Organised by NCPRI in collaboration with various campaigns and groups, including the National Alliance of Peoples Movements (NAPM), Right to Food Campaign (RTF) and the National Federation of Indian Women (NFIW), they insisted that the President should withhold his assent. Protesters said, the the amendment, passed in Parliament, were brought in because disclosures through the RTI Act were "inconvenient" for the government for disclosure of the Delhi University records of the year in which Prime Minister Narndra Modi graduated. Other "embarrassing...

By Fr Cedric Prakash  SJ * A massive people’s campaign is currently underway in the country to save the ‘Right to Information’ (RTI) Act. The campaign which can be visited at www.SaveRTI.in is also going viral on social media under the hashtag #SaveRTI – with several thousands of eminent and other concerned citizens already having signed it!

Counterview Desk In a letter to the Election Commission of India (ECI), more than 200 prominent citizens have said that a petition Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay vs Union of India before the Delhi High Court seeking an e-voting system using fingerprint and face biometrics should be “dismissed”, as aadhaar linkage with the Election ID “would harm the right to vote that Indian citizens have under our democracy, flowing from the Constitution and the Representation of People’s Act, 1951.”

By Our Representative National Campaign for People's Right to Information (NCPRI) leader Anjali Bhardwaj, in a public plea, has asked to concerned citizens, to send an appeal to the President of India, Ram Nath Kovind, asking him to “withhold his assent to the RTI Amendment Bill.” The appeal, she says, should be sent to secy.president@rb.nic.in and presidentofindia@rb.nic.in , with a copy it to saverti2019@gmail.com . Text of the appeal says, the RTI Amendment Bill, 2019 “seeks to undermine people’s right to information”, adding, “No public consultations have been held on the amendments and the bill was not referred to any Parliamentary committee for detailed scrutiny.” Asserting that Amendment Bill “is aimed at eroding the autonomy of information commissions, the final adjudicators under the RTI law”, the plea says, “Information Commissioners were guaranteed a fixed tenure under the RTI Act passed in 2005. The salaries, allowances and other terms of service of the Chief and infor...

By Rajiv Shah Is India compulsively moving towards a situation where centripetal tendencies are increasingly challenging centrifugal tendencies? A new research work, which has studied "link" between regional parties and secessionist forces, and resultant violence, goes a long way to imply that India's federal structure, governed from Delhi, is becoming fragile and may come under stress. For, already, no amount of "appeasement" of regional aspirations or "clampdown" on them is helping mitigate the situation.

By Sandeep Pandey, Praveen Srivastava* Geeta Gandhi Kingdon, Professor of Education Economics at University College London and President of City Montessori School Lucknow, in a critique of the draft New Education Policy (NEP) has identified poor school and teacher accountability as the main cause of learning crisis in public schools. She has advocated Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) to parents to enable them to have the purchasing power to hold the schools accountable.

Counterview Desk Working Group on International Financial Institutes (WGonIFIs), a top advocacy group monitoring involvement of such top global bodies like the World Bank (WB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in projects in India and their impact on communities has said that the WB’s International Inspection Panel’s Report on Amaravati Project has “validated” issues raised by civil society organizations (CSOs).

Counterview Desk A civil rights organization fighting for forest dwellers’ rights, Human Rights Forum (HRF), has demanded that the Government of India should withdraw the decision to survey and explore the tiger reserve in Nallamala forest for uranium, even as asking the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana governments to reject the survey and exploration proposal.

Counterview Desk In a strongly-worded commentary, the Working Peoples' Charter (WPC), an initiative to bring together all organizations working with, and organizing people dependent on the informal sector, has said that the new labour codes tabled in Parliament are “primarily driven by the interests of the industry” in order to “alter the labour protection landscape in India beyond repair and reclaim”.

By Nava Thakuria* Each India year India records five to six journalists’ deaths take place. In the first half of 2019, so far two incidents of scribes’ murders have taken place. The first victim belongs to Maharashtra. Anand Narayan was reportedly murdered on June 4 at Antop Hill locality of Mumbai. Narayan, 38, was murdered at his residence by the miscreants.

By Our Representative The Supreme Court (SC) has disposed of Mumbai Municipal Corporation’s Special Leave Petition (SLP) challenging the Mumbai High Court’s (HC's) order which had directed the Maharashtra government to pay Rs 15,000 rent to Mahul residents so as to enable them to move out of Mahul. The HC in April this year gave this direction after it was established that the toxic atmosphere in Mahul is a threat to the lives of the residents living there. However, the Maharashtra government appealed against the HC order in SC. Claiming that the Maharashtra government's appeal was based on "false reports", Mumbai's Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao (GBGB) housing rights movement, said the SC "made it clear that there is no ground to give any clarification for disposing of the matter." The SC order is a major setback to the Mumbai authorities, who were forcing slum dwellers to go Mahul. SC directed the slum dwellers to vacate their houses and accept the accommodati...

By Our Representative Strongly protesting against the Central government’s plan to keep NREGA workers outside the purview of whatever floor level minimum wage is declared, the NREGA Sangharsh Morcha (NSM) has said that while the BJP government’s Wage Code bill in the Lok Sabha on July 24 2019 which would fix a national floor level minimum wage, the Rural Development Minister “has stated that NREGA wages will continue to be less than this national floor level minimum wage.” “This implies that NREGA workers will continue to be exploited and will be forced to work at pittance wages”, NSM said, adding, “Ironically, this will result in the Central government disobeying a law that it is making mandatory for everyone else. It will also result in shutting out one of the largest sections of our rural work force from a right that will apply to all other workers.” Insisting that MGNREGA wages must be “a decent, dignified wage and above the national floor level wage”, MSM demanded that “a cl...

Protest against RTI amendment Bill in Delhi Counterview Desk Senior Right to Information (RTI) activist Venkatesh Nayak, who is with the advocacy group Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, in an email alert to Counterview on the Right to Information (Amendment) Bill, 2019, passed in the Lok Sabha on July 22 and introduced in the Rajya Sabha on July 24, has argued that the Government of India appears to have undermine state legislatures' powers while pushing through the amendment. 

By Venkatesh Nayak* The Bill to amend The Right to Information Act, 2005 ( RTI Act ) which the Lok Sabha approved (218 voting in favour and 79 opposing it) this Monday (22 July, 2019) is slated for introduction and passing in the Rajya Sabha today ( Click here and select 24/07/2019 for accessing the List of Business of the House). Despite the very vocal demand of the Opposition Benches who pointed out the flaws in the scheme and purpose of the Amendment Bill, the Government refused to accede. Will the Opposition MPs succeed in their efforts today to get the Bill referred to a Select Committee of the Rajya Sabha, remains to be seen. In his reply at the end of the debate, the Hon’ble Union Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions made a few points which indicated the Government’s mind in pushing for these amendments. These issues need elaborate discussion and hopefully MPs in the Rajya Sabha will take them up in right earnest. Meanwhile, I am sharing some of ...

By Mohan Guruswamy* Rahul Gandhi tried to make the Rafale issue the sharp edge of the sword to politically slay Narendra Modi. He failed. But that does not absolve the Modi government from providing convincing answers as to why we are paying almost three times more for each Rafale than what was offered in 2014. People need an explanation. It is not a defence secret. It is an essential truth that is being sought.

By Rajiv Shah An investigation by a high-profile e-journal run by a top American digital media and entertainment company focused on young women, Refinery 29 (R29), based in the Financial District, Manhattan neighbourhood of New York City, has raised the alarm that 9,000 miles away, nearly 22,000 children are risking their lives while working for a paltry sum of Rs 20 to 30 per day in mica mines of Jharkhand and Bihar.

Subhadra with school-going girls By Rahul Banerjee* I set out four decades ago to try and improve the situation of Adivasis in the Western Madhya Pradesh region but unfortunately have mostly met with failure. However, nothing hurts more than the most recent in this series of failures because it is related to girls' education.

By Our Representative The National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM) has said that Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar instead of taking a recent incident of mob lynching head on is indulging in "idle word play" at time his administration "is not serious about citizens' safety or in promoting a secular environment. Commenting on the killing of three persons in Saran distict, the CM had said thar it is "not a case of mob lynching but of murder arising out of local situation." In the mob lynching incident, Raju Nat, Bides Nat and Naushad Quereshi of Paigambarpur village were killed on July 19, 2019. "It has been alleged that the deceased were cattle thieves. The police have stated that villagers caught them while they were stealing cattle and beat them up using sticks and iron rods leading to their death. Three men have been arrested in this case so far", NAPM, a network of tens of grassroots organizations in India, said. This is the third inc...

By Our Representative Responding to a national call for action by the Bhumi Adhikar Andolan (BAA), more than hundred protest demonstrations and public meeting were organised across the country on Monday, expressing their "disappointment" for the "shoddy" manner in which State governments and the Central government are dealing with the implementation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA). Adivasis and other traditional forests dwellers submitted memorandums to the Prime Minister, Chief Ministers and the Ministry for Tribal Affairs through their district administration authorities and demanded that their rights are recognised through effective implementation of FRA. They also sought withdrawal of the Forest Rights Act (Amendment) Bill 2019. Protest demonstrations were held in Tripura, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Delhi, Rajasthan, Kerala, and Uttar Pradesh. The acti...

Protest in Delhi against RTI amendment bill By Our Representative Hundreds of people took out a protest march in Delhi on Monday against what its main organisers, the National Campaign for Peoples’ Right to Information (NCPRI), termed "regressive amendments" being made to the Right to Information (RTI) Act. Shouting slogans of "RTI Bachao, Loktantra Bachao", protestors concluded the march at the Constitution Club where a Jan Manch was held.

Counterview Desk Every 10th Adivasi of Jharkhand’s Pathalgadi area is charged with sedition, Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha (JMM), a network of activists and people’s organisations, which organised a protest in Ranchi in front of the Governor's house, has said. In a statement following the protest on Monday, JMM has called for larger support to stand up against violations of Constitutional rights of Adivasis and use of sedition law as tool for repression.

By Our Representative The National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM) has said that the proposed amendments to the Right to Information (RTI) Act is part of sinister attempts by the NDA Government to "arbitrarily push ahead regressive" changes in multiple pro-people legislations passed after protracted nation-wide struggles and consultative parliamentary processes when UPA was in power before 2014. Calling it a move to "dilute" the RTI Act, "one of the most potent tools to ensure governmental accountability", NAPM said, the amendment would undermine the independence and autonomy of information commissions, which a matter of "grave concern." Introduced in the Lok Sabha on July 19 "amidst a shroud of secrecy and there were no public consultations in this regard", one of India's topmost grassroots organizations said, the law’s passage in Parliament in 2005 was a victory and acknowledgement of the tireless efforts of peoples’ m...

By Our Representative A delegation of two civil rights groups, Samata and mines, minerals and People (mm&P), has impressed upon several of India's members of Parliament (MPs) to discuss and raise issues relating to illegal mining, the Samata judgment, children in the mining areas and the District Mineral Foundation (DMF) in Parliament, adding, the issue of involvement of gram sabhas in decision making ought to be central for allowing any new projects in forest areas.

Counterview Desk On July 17, as many as 10 people, including three women, were killed and 28 injured when a village head and his supporters opened fire on a group of tribal farmers in Ubha village of Sonbhadra district in Uttar Pradesh. While the firing took place following a clash between over a land ownership dispute, it reportedly highlights failure of officials enforce Forest Rights Acts (FRA) and Survey Settlement in favour of tribals.

By Our Representative The Bhumi Adhikar Andolan (BAA), a network of land rights movements across India, will be holding protests all over India against the eviction of forest dwellers on July 22, 2019, ahead of a crucial Supreme Court hearing two days later. The call for action is against the Supreme Court ruling of February 13, 2019 on eviction of millions of Adivasis and other traditional forest-dwelling communities, which was stayed for four months. BAA said, a protest will also be organized in Delhi a protest demonstration will be held at Jantar Mantar, 12:00 noon onwards, adding, the decision for the action was taken as a two-day National Consultation of Land and Forest Rights Movements held in Delhi early this month, where it was decided to hold programmes and protest actions condemning government actions against forest dwellers and amendments to the Forest Act. BAA further said, letters have already gone to chief ministers of different states seeking their intervention in favo...

By Our Representative Representatives of social movements from 16 states have decided at a national consultation to hold massive long marches and nationwide protests on August 9, the anniversary of Quit India movement, against electronic voting machines being used during the polls. To be bannered “EVMs Quit India! EVM Hatao – Desh Bachao – Ballot Paper Lao!” Held on July 14, the meeting focussed upon the EVM-VVPAT “fraud” being allegedly perpetrated on the nation, insisting, how the entire election process, including the Election Commission, has been “subverted.” In a statement, the EVM Virodhi Rashtriya Jan Andolan, which proposes to organize the protest, said, the “unprecedented situation poses a grave risk to the very foundations of our democracy, our Constitution and our institutions because of the EVM-VVPAT.” Quoting technical experts present at the consultation, the statement said, “The EVMs-VVPATs can be subverted and are clearly pre-programmable. They went on to affirm that the...

By Our Representative The civil rights group, Financial Accountability Network (FAN), in a statement on the golden jubilee year of the nationalisation of banks, has demanded that the Government of India should bring back principles of mass banking, adding, "Strong measures should be taken to recover the non-performing assets (NPAs) of corporates", and willful defaulters should be "declared criminal offenders." Also wanting bank charges to be withdrawn, the statement regrets, the nationalised banks, which contributed hugely to the economy over the last five decades, "are under attack for the past 25 years under the neo-liberal rule", and multiple efforts are on "to privatise banking sector under the dictates of the global capital." According to FAN, this has happening even though public sector banks still enjoy the trust of the public at a time when they are facing one of the most severe crises, and the principle of mass banking and catering to th...

Excerpts from the chapter “Ministry / Department wise priority to schemes for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes” in the report “Dalit Adivasi Budget Analysis 2019-20”, published by the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights-Dalit Arthik Adhikar Andolon: In the budget speech of 2017-18, then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had introduced outcome-based monitoring for Schemes for welfare of scheduled castes, scheduled tribe and minorities. Subsequently the nodal ministries – Ministry for Social Justice and Empowerment (MSJE) and Ministry of Tribal Affairs ( MoTA) launched E-utthaan, a monitoring portal to get real-time data of performance and outcomes for all ministries and departments. These portals can become a useful tool for analyzing the approach and programme implementation strategy of all ministries/ departments, which are earmarked for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (SC & ST) communities. The two monitoring portals have improved budget transparency with regard to implem...

By Rajiv Shah Even as sticking to his original argument that India's gross domestic product (GDP) since 2011-12 has been overestimated by 2.5%, renowned economist Arvind Subramanian has said in a fresh paper that his estimate of post-2011-12 growth rate at around 4.5% is surely not "implausibly low", as some of his critics have been arguing following his controversial June paper .

Counterview Desk India's independent Right to Information watchdog, The National Campaign for Peoples’ Right to Information (NCPRI), in a statement, has said that the Government of India’s proposed amendments to the RTI Act to empower the Centre to unilaterally decide the tenure, salary, allowances and other terms of service of Information Commissioners at the Centre and States “seriously undermine” the law.

Counterview Desk NREGA Sangharsh Morcha, a well-known advocacy group for the rural jobs guarantee scheme, under implementation since 2005, has said that the statement by the Rural Development Minister has a made a mockery of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) on the floor of Parliament, revealing the ruling BJP’s “anti-worker and anti-poor bias”.

Excerpts “The Right to Information (Amendment) Bill, 2019: A Critical Review of the Amendment Proposals and the Underlying Reasoning”, prepared by Venkatesh Nayak, Access to Information Programme, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, New Delhi: *** The Government of India (GoI) has come up with a Bill to amend the Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act). This is GoI’s third attempt to amend this seminal law since its enforcement in October 2005. First, in August 2006, the Union Cabinet approved proposals to amend the law in order to keep “file notings” or opinion and advice recorded on file by officers involved in a decision-making chain on issues other than those relating to development and social issues. Thanks to the very vocal and widespread opposition from the citizenry, the government was compelled to shelve the proposal without ever introducing it in Parliament. Second, in 2013, GoI tabled a Bill to amend the RTI Act in order to insulate from public scrutiny, all political pa...