Counterview Desk Well-known women's group Saheli has sharply criticized the Government of India for showing “utter insensitivity and callousness” towards the poor and the most vulnerable sections in the wake of the coronavirus crisis. 

By Rishiraj Sinha, Biswanath Sinha* “No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background or his religion. People learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” – Nelson Mandela ***

Panicky migrant workers leaving cities following Indian lockdown By Dr Bhabani Shankar Nayak* The ugly head of racism is out in open air amidst COVID-19 pandemic. The racism against Chinese people and propaganda against the achievements of the Chinese revolution spreads like coronavirus. The anti-Chinese media coverage also replicates the history of anti-communist propaganda and campaign against the Soviet Union from the days of its inception to fall.

Counterview Desk Finance Minister (FM) Nirmala Sitharaman’s announcement of providing an average of Rs 2,000 extra per household through the Mahatma Gandhi National Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) is a misnomer, NREGA Sangharsh Morcha, a civil rights organization working among NREGA workers has asserted.

By Chandra Vikash* Discerning through the global information on coronavirus Pandemic, it turns out that what I had thought around March 10 that we should allow Herd Immunity to set in was bang on. In retrospect, Prime Minister Narenda Modi and his team made a blunder to stop people from playing Holi, which is scientifically underpinned to ward off viral infections which rise around this seasonal change.

By Nava Thakuria* Newspapers in India face an uphill task to maintain its readership index as New Delhi declared for a complete lockdown till the middle of April because of pandemic Covid-19 outbreak in the large country. A shutdown that instantly prevented the vendors to deliver morning newspapers at their doorsteps of buyers and the rumour that the paper itself can carry the novel corona virus forced many publishers to drastically reduce their circulation figure.

Panicky workers walk long miles to reach home By Amarjeet Kaur* The first round of announcement from the Finance Ministry for some sort of economic package for mainly the registered construction workers, women under Jan Dhan accounts, those families covered under Ujjawala for free cylinders and for farmers is inadequate. Much more needs to be done for the vast majority of workers who remain excluded.

By Natash Maru* On March 24, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a 21-day lockdown as a preventative action against the community spread of the novel coronavirus. But while we remain within the safety of our homes, the homeless, migrant workers, and people of nomadic and denotified nomadic tribes have found themselves stranded and shelterless in Mumbai, Maharashtra.

Migrants walking back to their villages from Ahmedabad Counterview Desk In a critique of Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s Rs 1.7 lakh crore package to deal with the economic fallout of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, half-a-dozen senior activists have said, it would have been more appropriate to make such an announcement prior to the lockdown so that lakhs of migrant workers would not have panicked and travelled, creating distress and health hazards.

Making tribals aware of precautions during corona virus  By Souparno Chatterjee* The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared corona virus a pandemic. Originating from Wuhan in China, it has traversed the entire globe, almost, and claimed more than 16,000 lives already. That’s largely the urban population. In India, despite all the preparedness and war-like promptness to safeguard against the pandemic, several lives have been lost , and hundreds of individuals have tested positive.

Haren Pandya By Fr Cedric Prakash SJ* Seventeen years ago, two seemingly unconnected, but strangely enough, inter-related incidents, took place in quick succession: the murder of Haren Pandya and the passing of the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Bill. March 26, 2003 would surely go down to rank as one of the most infamous days in the history of Gujarat, and perhaps of India!

In Gujarat capital Gandhinagar amidst lockdown. Photo: Kevin Antao By Our Representative While taking note of the 1.7 lakh crore package announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the poor in India, the Social Security Now (SSN) has said that the package is “inadequate” and “disrespectful” of the recipients as it involves transfer of less than Rs 1000 a month to their accounts, and justifies payment of wages less than minimum wages.

By Dr S Jayaprakash, Bharathy, Dr Simi Mehta, Dr Balwant Singh Mehta, Dr Arjun Kumar, Dr Manish Priyadarshi* We have had an information overdose on the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), possible precautions, and treatments from this infection. The major facilitator for this has been the print, electronic and social media. This article focuses on the need for next level planning that is needed to protect the unorganized and informal labourers and those at the bottom of the ladder in India. Ascertaining these measures will answer the basic question whether the humanity still retains its rationality. Impact on human and economic health In the past, various parts of the world have frequently been gripped by spread of different epidemics. Along with mortality, the fear psychosis of succumbing to the epidemic has often had negative consequences on the overall economy. For instance, the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, which infected 500 million people, which was about quarter of world population...

Notice put up outside an Ahmedabad house (left): Alert! Quarantine Area  By Battini Rao* India is passing through the second stage of the most serious health crisis in its recent history. How we respond to it as a society is crucial to mitigating the effect of COVID 19 virus on our individual health. Democracy is ultimately a system of social relationships, of everyone with everybody else that respects the twin principles of equality and individual autonomy, so that everyone becomes responsible to everyone else without the use of threat, fear, and social power.

Migrants passing through Gujarat capital Gandhinagar. Photo: Kevin Antao By Our Representative Situated behind the Gujarat University, some of the families of the migrant construction workers from Dahod and Panchmahals districts of Gujarat, and a few from Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, who had stayed put in make-shift shanties in Ahmedabad’s sprawling GMDC Ground, have begun a long journey, by foot, back to their home villages in the eastern tribal belt of Gujarat.

Counterview Desk One of India’s top trade union organizations, All-India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), in a statement, has taken strong exception to a “meagre” allocation of Rs 15,000 crore to fight the deadly coronavirus, has said that little is being done to help the marginalized sections of society, especially daily wagers, migrants, agriculture workers and self-employed persons like hawkers-vendors, porters, loaders, domestic workers etc. who are “losing their livelihood in the lockdown.”

By Fr Cedric Prakash SJ* Forty years ago, on March 24, 2020, Archbishop Oscar Romero was brutally gunned down, whilst he celebrated the Eucharist in his native El Salvador. As the world remembers and celebrates the memory of this great Saint of our times, one is reminded of the three Ps that epitomised him: Prayer, Presence, Prophet.

By Pankti Jog* Following the coronavirus outbreak, the government declared closure of all schools and anaganwadis of Gujarat. While this is an essential preventive measure, evidence suggests, it has excluded lakhs of children, pregnant women, lactating mothers and adolescent girls from nutrition support they were getting from the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS).

Former BJP chief minister Suresh Mehta Counterview Desk More than 200 academics, activists, students, business-persons, other concerned citizens have sought Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani's intervention to stop harassment of Gandhian Sarvodaya activist Lakhan Musafir, an active campaigner for tribal rights and opponent of land acquisition for the Statue of Unity tourism project.

Ramnath Kovind, Prof GD Agrawal By Sandeep Pandey* The President of India Ram Nath Kovind has written an article on coronavirus reminding us that we are merely biological organisms, dependent on other organisms for survival and that humankind’s craving to control nature and exploit all its resources for profit can be wiped out in a stroke by a minuscule organism.

Counterview Desk Several women's organisations, collectives and individuals* have called upon the State and Central governments, institutions, authorities and elected representatives to urgently address take executive measures to ensure that the entire the process of National Population Register (NPR) data collection is deferred immediately.

Counterview Desk In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the National Dalit Watch-National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights, endorsed* by several other Dalit rights organizations, have insisted, the Government of India should particular care of the scheduled castes and tribes, trans folks, persons with disabilities and the women and children from these communities, while fighting against COVID-19 pandemic.

By Our Representative In a surprise move, an Australian environmental group, Frontline Action on Coal, has claimed that Adani Mining Carmichael mine site, being operated by the powerful Indian industrial house known to close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is operating in “full swing" during a time Australian states are closing their borders because of the COVID-19 crisis, with many states advocating for only supermarkets and pharmacies to be open.”

Scindia (extreme left) with Rahul and Sonia Gandhi By Anand K Sahay*  Jyotiraditya Scindia’s defection to the BJP was a business decision. Once he lost the Lok Sabha election last May to his secretary, who had joined the BJP, Scindia would have known he would be following suit to protect his investment in politics at the present juncture.

By Venkatesh Nayak* While replying to the debate in the Lok Sabha on budgetary proposals for Jammu and Kashmir for the next financial year (2020-2021), the Hon’ble Finance Minister claimed, transparency had increased , corruption had ended and true democracy had been instituted there with the downgrading of the erstwhile State to a Union Territory last year. While the effect of J&K’s status-change on democracy and corruption is something which local people should be able to comment on, the claims of transparency can always be verified by anybody using The Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act). Here is as sampler. Transparency in apple procurement in J&K How many apples were bought from growers in Jammu and Kashmir under the Market Intervention Scheme (MIS) that the Central and State/UT level governments implemented through the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd. (NAFED) during the current season (2019-2020)? The figures these government...

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Years ago, when I could not get a reservation to return to Delhi from Deoria, I boarded a bus for Lucknow at 4:30 in the evening, hoping that it would take me there late in the night and would then board another bus for Delhi. But the bus got stuck in the traffic jam of Gorakhpur and spent nearly five hours before moving to Lucknow. I have never been comfortable in travelling in buses when I am alone as there is little space for legs as well as for your luggage. But more than that, it is the health issues, particularly urinating or for any other emergency. When I was buying the ticket the conductor asked me to get the ticket for Kanpur where the bus was finally going. He said, I should get down there and that I would easily get a bus for Delhi from there. The bus reached Kanpur in the morning at about 6 am. I looked for other buses, but there was none. Everyone informed me that all the buses would go late in the evening as they took nearly 10 to 12 hours. I thou...

By Gajanan Khergamker* Matheran, a hill station in Maharashtra, finds itself mired in controversies. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has flayed the much-touted Zonal Master Plan (ZMP), formulated after a whopping 15 year delay, for being ‘faulty and incomplete’ leading to a violation of environmental laws. NGT has prevented any new constructions in the Eco-Sensitive Zone (ESZ) and put brakes on all things spanking new and ‘developmental’ until concerns raised by environment groups under the eco-sensitive zone notifications are tackled.

By Chandra Vikash* Of the four deaths reported on account of coronavirus in a nation of 1.3 billion even on the 50th day of the #CoronaVirusPandemic, all of them are comorbidity cases , meaning that they were already severely ill from lifestyle diseases. So, if we really care for human lives, and I agree with fellow traveller Smita Sharma, that every life is precious, we should do the utmost to change our diseased lifestyles. Where do we start?

By Bhabani Shankar Nayak* The coronavirus pandemic is battering lives and wreaking havoc in world economy at the same time. This worldwide health and economic crisis reveal the inherent structural fault lines within neoliberal economic system dominated by global corporations. The fault lines are further exacerbated by the amoral market led states that protect interests of big businesses and pharmaceutical corporations.

Counterview Desk The civil rights organization Right to Food Campaign, Jharkhand, has called for urgent overhaul of social security and public health system in the state even as the impact of the COVID-19 crisis is beginning to be felt in the state. In a statement, Asharfi Nand Prasad, convener of the campaign, said it is not just the pandemic that concerns the state.

By Our Representative Manav Garima, a grassroots voluntary organization, which works for the amelioration of the sanitary workers of Gujarat, has raised the alarm that the coronavirus pandemic may harm those involved in different types of cleaning work on streets, in gutters and canals, collecting garbage from individual households and societies, cleaning public toilets, and disposing of dead animals.

Ranjit Chautala with Prime Minister Narendra Mod i By Aviral Anand* “ Dange Hote Rahe Hain , It’s a Part of Life”, said Haryana Minister Ranjit Chautala on Delhi violence on February 27, 2020. The now normalised, almost impersonal, term, “ dange ,” communal clashes, points to the tiresome predictability of so-called Hindu-Muslim confrontations, almost in the mock-exasperated tone of “boys will be boys.” Yes, it has come to that.

By Our Representative A Delhi-based “feminist autonomous women's group” claiming to work on violence against women for over three decades, condemning the hanging of the four December 2012 gang rape and murder convicts, has asserted that “capital punishment is not the answer, it has never worked as a deterrent for any crime.”

PM addressing the nation on March 19. Click here to listen By Leo Saldanha* My dear brothers and sisters, The global pandemic of COVID-19, a viral flu, has cost thousands of lives and made thousands more sick. It has brought the world to a grinding halt. As humanity faces its gravest challenge in recent decades, it is a time for the world to reflect on what we must do right, from now on. While India joins the community of nations to tackle the pandemic, this requires us to take effective steps within our country to contain the disease, so we can save lives and ensure a secure future for all.

Good old days? Scindia with Kamal Nath By RK Misra* There is this tale about the wise man and the fool. The wise man does at once what the fool does finally, said Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern political philosophy and science. Whether Jyotiraditya Scindia is the wiseman, and the Congress a fool, is best left for posterity to decipher but current facts bode a different political script .

Counterview Desk In a background paper on understanding the COVID-19 epidemic in the context of India health rights organizations, Jan Swasthya Abhiyan (JSA) and All India People’s Science Network (AIPSN), have argued that, faced with such a disaster on this scale, “governments often resort to blaming the victims and use authoritarian exercise of power that would distract from its failures. This has happened in the past, and it could happen again.”

Counterview Desk In a statement, two health rights organisations, Jan Swasthya Abhiyan (JSA) and All India People’s Science Network (AIPSN) have warned that while the Government of India has "reacted swiftly" to the COVID19 (coronavirus) epidemic by curtailing international travel, but the government knows, the worst is yet to come.

Counterview Desk  Even as the Government of India (GoI) is going ahead with the "updation" of the National Population Register (NPR) starting April 1, 2020, prominent women's rights leaders have released a letter addressed to 29 chief ministers stating that, "irrespective of caste and religious community", women across the country will be adversely affected by the "new NPR-National Registration Identity Card (NRIC) citizenship regime."

By Moin Qazi* Mhaswad village is a mere blip on India’s vast geographic radar but it shines brightly on the country’s development landscape.The lodestar in this parched village is an intrepid and passionate woman with a unique brand of determination. A woman of strong convictions, 60- year old Chetna Gala Sinha believes that emancipation of women can be best done by providing them tools to run businesses of their own and advocacy skills to enable them influence policies that impact their societies. Her work has transformed the lives of nearly half a million impoverished and dispossessed women and she hopes to help 1 million women by 2024. Mhaswad village, which has been a crucible for the revolutionary social experiments of Sinha, nestles in Satara district, on the placid banks of Manganga River, some 300 km (200 miles) southeast of Mumbai. A highly discernible sign on the Indian development canvas is the emergence of bright brains from the best universities who are foregoing promisin...

Counterview Desk Drawing parallel with the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, a People's Tribunal on Delhi Carnage organised by human rights several organizations at the Constitution Club of India sharply criticised underreporting of the death count as also damages by Home Minister Amit Shah in the Lok Sabha on March 11, 2020 while addressing the house on riots.

By Our Representative With the death of Dinesh Palji Jitiyua, 50, who passed way after suffering from silicosis at the Rajkot Civil Hospital on March 13, in all nine persons have succumbed to the fatal occupational disease over the last about a year in Than, the hub of ceramic industry in Gujarat.

Lakhan Musafir By Sagar Rabari*  Sarvodaya worker Lakhan Musafir has been served a notice by Rajpipla Sub-Divisional Magistrate barring his entry in five Gujarat districts (Narmada, Bharuch, Vadodara, Chhota Udepur and Tapi) for two years. Citing a police report, KD Bhagat, sub-divisional magistrate, Rajpipla in the notice states that:

By RK Misra* Estimates may deign to deceive but figures ferret out facts. In Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat, the government’s cumulative public debt has shot up to an astronomical Rs 2,96,268 crore which is almost Rs 75,000 crore higher than the size of the state’s budget estimates of Rs 2,17,287 for 2020-21 placed in the State Assembly on February 26.

Counterview Desk The Delhi-based collective, Citizens Against Hate (CAH), in its new 206-page report, “Everyone has been Silenced: Police Excess Against anti-CAA protesters in Uttar Pradesh, and Post-Violence reprisal”, has alleged that the police are not been “disclosing, admitting to, or registering cases of deaths by police firing”, adding, this is happening despite “ground reports” by affected persons, civil society organisations, and the media. Prepared by a research team* under the guidance of well-known scholar Henri Tiphagne, among others, the report  says, based on on-the-spot inquiries in December-January in the nine districts where violence took place Bijnor, Firozabad, Kanpur, Lucknow, Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, Rampur, Sambhal and Varanasi, the report says that all that the UP Police has done is only to project “denials and contradictions in disclosing how many deaths have occurred due to police firing.” The result is, it adds, First Information Reports (FIRs) regist...