By Rajiv Shah New data released by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), in the report “Key Indicators of Household Consumer Expenditure in India”, released in June 2013, have suggested that the purchasing power of the people, as reflected in the monthly per capita expenditure (MPCE), has been rising at a much slower pace in Gujarat than most states of India. As a result, Gujaratis, on an average, are forced to spend a higher percentage on food items, as against non-food items, which are a secondary priority of people. Non-food items, according to the NSSO, include transport, fuel, light, clothing, footwear, education, medical bills, entertainment, paan and cigarettes or bidis, and durables.

Bhopal rally against Narmada dam By A Representative In a strongly-worded statement, the National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM) has said that the Central authorities "cannot permit drowning of two lakh population without rehabilitation". The Narmada Bachao Andolan, led by top activist Medha Patkar, is one of the NAPM's major partners. The decision to permit raising of the height of the Sardar Sarovar Dam from the present height of 122 metres to the final height of 138.68 metres was taken by the Resettlement and Rehabilitation (R&R) sub-group of the Narmada Control Authority (NCA) on June 26. "This is supposed to have been done on the basis of the reports by the four states, including Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra, confirming, that ‘rehabilitation is complete’", NAPM said, adding, :"All this is absolutely unbelievable and unacceptable since there are more than 40,000 families in the 245 villages in the submergence area spread ...

By A Representative Farmer leaders of Gujarat have come together in solidarity to express in one voice that they oppose the Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) Bill. They have asserted that under no circumstances they can afford to lose their freedom and sovereignty and risk the takeover of their food, farms and livelihood by multinational companies like Monsanto. The meeting was attended by farmer leaders such as Badribhai Joshi of Gujarat Khedut Samaj, Prafulbhai Senjaliya of the Organic Farming Cell of Bharatiya Kisan Sangh, and Sarvadaman Patel, president, Organic Farming Association of India and Kapil Shah of the Jatan Trust.

By Rajiv Shah The latest National Sample Survey (NSS) data have suggested that Gujarat's regular wage earners, salaried classes and the casual workers are being paid one of the lowest wages as compared to most Indian states. While Gujarat may claim to have the highest pace of urbanisation in India, shockingly, as against the all-India average per day earning of urban regular wage earners and salaried persons of Rs 450 per day, in Gujarat it is a poor Rs 320. This, if the NSS, which carried out its survey in 2011 and 2012, is to be believed, is the lowest compared to anywhere else in the country.

By Rajiv Shah  A Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA)-sponsored study has found strong discrimination against poorer sections of women -- irrespective of whether they belong to scheduled caste (SC), scheduled tribe (T) or general category -- in the delivery of maternal health care services in Gujarat.

By Rajiv Shah In a major setback to Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi's proposal to collect iron from farmers all over India to build the Statue of Unity in the name of Sardar Patel in the downstream of the Narmada dam, a a top aide of the Gujarat CM has said that the iron from the farmers “cannot be used for constructing the world's highest statue.” The aide, who wanted not to be named, told www.counterview.net that the “iron collected from the farmers will obviously be of different types and suspected quality. Some of it may be simply scrap or junk. Obviously, it cannot be used for constructing a quality Sardar statue.” 

By Jag Jivan  A recent Planning Commission-sponsored study, “Refining State Level Comparisons in India”, by Pranjul Bhandari, who works as economist at the Office of the Chief Economic Advisor in the Ministry of Finance, Government of India, has found that a “refined” analysis of the performance across 21 major states suggests that Gujarat ranks 16th in health, 14th in education and 11th in infrastructure. The analysis is already creating flutter against the backdrop of the claim by those favouring Gujarat’s neoliberal model, that state’s alleged poor performance in the social sector is more an outcome of “fudged” figures, dished out by the Government India’s different ministries. The “refined” analysis for comparing states is considered a new and a more scientific methodology, adopted in order to find out how well states perform given the availability of resources at their disposal. It differs from the “raw” analysis, under which Gujarat ranked 12th in health, 10th in education an...

By A Representative With the schooling season having begun, activists of the Agariya Hit Rakshak Manch (AHRM), who are active among saltpan workers of the Little Rann of Kutch, have expressed strong apprehension that children or around 14,000 saltpan workers, who propose to shift to the Little Rann to produce salt in September, may turn into out-of-school kids. While the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), a Central scheme, runs makeshift schools for these children, the kids are not offered any normal facilities which primary school kids should get.

Rally at Gandhinagar By A Representative The Jamin Adhikar Andolan Gujarat (JAAG) -- which on June 18 led a well-attended farmers’ rally starting in North Gujarat’s Bhechraji region, and ending at the state capital Gandhinagar after passing through Sanand town and Ahmedabad city -- has warned the Gujarat government against any attempt to forcibly acquire 50,885 hectares of land in order to set up special investment region (SIR) in the region. In a memorandum submitted to state revenue minister Anandiben Patel, JAAG has said, “Bhechraji-Mandal SIR notification dated May 14 is in our hand. The map of the notification suggests that more than one lakh people of 44 villages of four talukas will be adversely affected because of SIR. We are not going to take it lying down.”

By Jag Jivan  Another three-day Gujarat government-sponsored Shala Praveshotsav, a “festival” involving the entire state officialdom, starting with the Gujarat chief minister, meant to enroll children at the primary level, has come to an end. An official release at the end of the festival claimed, “The state-wide enrollment drive gained great momentum under the leadership of chief minister Narendra Modi, who himself graced the mahotsav in Mendarada block of Chiroda, Samadhiyala and Rajesar primary school at Junagadh district.” The official release claimed, on the third day, a total of 1,56,884 children in the age group 5+ years were enrolled, comprising 76,802 girls and 80,082 boys. It added, “Thus, in the three days of the enrollment drive, a total of 4,80,556 children consisting of 2,35,263 girls and 2,45,293 boys have been enrolled. Saying that ministers, “IAS, IPS and IFS officers of the state attended programmes at various backward blocks of Gujarat” for the festival, the rele...

By Jag Jivan  Even as the Gujarat government is planning to come up with a new slum policy 2013, with “rehabilitation” of the slum-dwellers with the help of private developers as the key thrust, available literature suggests that any effort to uproot slum dwellers would mean further heightening their already vulnerable status. Recently, in a paper, “Low Carbon Green Growth Roadmap for Asia and the Pacific”, providing a roadmap for citywide slum upgradation, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) said that “the poor and the vulnerable in cities and towns can aspire to have security, shelter, basic infrastructure and services with citywide slum upgrading”, adding, “Up to 35 per cent of Asia-Pacific urban residents in slums with proper urban planning can have adequate shelter and basic services through proper urban planning.” UNESCAP believes, this would be possible, only in case of “on-site slum upgrading” which would “mean improving the phys...

By Rajiv Shah Top technocrat Dr Anil Kane, who gave the ambitious project for damming the Gulf of Khambhat the now popular name of Kalpasar more than two decades ago by conceptualising it, has heavily come down on the Gujarat government for making the entire project “unviable and unworkable.” Talking with Counterview, Dr Kane said, a major factor that will make the project redundant is that, under the new project design, the Narmada river has been removed from the Kalpasar reservoir. “From where will you get water if Narmada river is not made part of Kalpasar?”, he wondered.

By A Representative A recent workshop, held under the auspices of the Dalit Hak Rakshak Manch (DHRM), an Ahmedabad-based NGO working on child rights issues, has found that the Gujarat government is showing "gross indifference" towards the Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS), a Government of India scheme floated in 2009 for the vulnerable sections of children, who, finding themselves in certain special conditions, are victims of abuse, neglect, exploitation, abandonment and separation from family.

Rajendra Joshi By Jag Jivan  The draft new slum policy 2013, called “Gujarat Sum Rehabilitation and Redevelopment Policy”, overlooks the issue of slum upgradation altogether, despite the fact that it was found to be working successfully in Ahmedabad in 1990s. The government has not cared to float the draft policy for public debate, which has further constrained any meaningful dialogue on it. The Gujarat government is mulling over the new Slum Policy 2013, and its draft, which has been prepared, has mooted changes from the earlier policy of 2010 in order to make it attractive for the urban poor, who were promised 50 lakh houses in the BJP manifesto during the December 2012 elections. And, in order to provide teeth to do it, it has decided to “manage” slums by making the Gujarat chief minister as head a new authority, Gujarat Affordable Housing and Slum Rehabilitation Authority (GAHSRA), which will have all the powers to “decide and/ or guide matters related to land use, town plannin...

By A Representative In a major loss of face for the Gujarat government, the State Information Commission has ordered the state social justice and empowerment department to hand over a copy of a report on untouchability in Gujarat's villages within a month. About a month and a half ago, giving a strange explanation, the state government declared that providing information under the Right to Information (RTI) Act on prevalence of untouchability in the state will lead to “a sharp rise in incidence of enmity in the rural areas of Gujarat.”

By A Representative Ahead of a crucial meeting with a Gujarat government representative, a statement issued by the Jamin Adhikar Aandolan Gujarat (JAAG), signed by Sagar Rabari and Laljibhai Desai, has warned the Gujarat government it is “unhappy with government’s lies on the issue of Mandal-Becharaji special investment region (SIR)". Wanting the government to answer JAAG's several of the queries, a meeting of the Campaign Committee of the Mandal-Becharaji SIR at village Vanod, suggested that the people would by the explanation by the government that no land was being acquired.

 UN meeting in progress By Kantilal Parmar* The United Nations member states should focus urgent attention and decisive action to improve conditions for Dalit women, four international non-governmental organisations said today. The combination of caste and gender makes millions of Dalit women extremely vulnerable to discrimination and violence, including rape, forced prostitution and modern forms of slavery. This was recognized at a high-level UN meeting in Geneva on June 7. “Many [Dalit women] experience some of the worst forms of discrimination,” said Rashida Manjoo, the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women in a written statement in Geneva. “The reality of Dalit women and girls is one of exclusion and marginalization, which perpetuates their subordinate position in society and increases their vulnerability, throughout generations.”

Prajul Bhandari By Rajiv Shah A new Planning Commission-sponsored study, “Refining State Level Comparisons in India”, by Pranjul Bhandari, economist at the Office of the Chief Economic Advisor in the Ministry of Finance, Government of India, and a chief brain behind the Economic Survey 2012-13, says that her “refined” analysis has found that Gujarat stands 16th in health index, 12th in education index and 11th in infrastructure index among 21 major Indian states. Bhandari has arrived at these figures on the basis of a new methodology she adopts by “refining” raw data in order to find out how well do states perform in the context of the resources at their disposal.

By A Representative The National Human Rights Commission has issued a notice to the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development on the basis of reports alleging fierce caste-based discrimination and violence in the hostel of Dalit students at several places in India. The Commission observed that the news reports, if true, reflects “widespread prevalence of discrimination towards Dalits in the educational institutions driving them to take extreme steps”, adding, “The state has the responsibility and duty to ensure that an atmosphere is created in educational institutions wherein everyone, irrespective of caste, creed or religion, can pursue studies. The Constitution of India has also elaborate provisions to stop discrimination against the Dalits.”

By Jag Jivan   Is discrimination of Dalits in the delivery of basic services an international human rights issue which needs a much deeper exposure than has been the case so far? The question is significant, because, despite lobbying at various levels on the part of the International Dalit Solidarity Network (IDSN) during recent years, the Government of India has strongly refused to acknowledge caste discrimination as an international human rights issue, which should be dealt with in the UN. Whether it is water, sanitation or health, the discrimination continues, and government sops have failed to do anything to subdue its impact.  This is quite in line with what a UN expert who visited India in 2012. In her annual report, the Special Rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation, Catarina de Albuquerque, studied the links between stigma and discrimination in the realization of the right to water and sanitation. She found that “caste systems are stri...

By A Representative Gujarat's civil society has taken strong exception to failure of the Gujarat government to have a State Action Plan, a requirement for every state under a Government of India direction. In statement, two NGOs, Paryavaran Mitra and Janvikas, on the eve of the World Environment Day, which falls on June 5, have said that not only is there no climate change website of the state government despite the fact that it claimed to be the first to have a separate department, it has not yet prepared the State Action Plan on Climate Change (SAPCC) to submission to the Centre for further action. Worse, the state government has still not set up Climate Change Trust Fund, which was announced two years ago and even finances were set aside for it.

By Jag Jivan  A well-known international organisation, Save the Children, has quoted official data to suggest how the neoliberal growth model, for which a section of economists project Gujarat as the idea, has failed to bring down social and economic inequalities in India.  A new report, “Reducing Inequality: Learning Lessons for Post-2015 Agenda – India Case Study”, by top international organization, Save the Children, with presence in more than 120 countries and 15 Indian states, has blamed the neoliberal growth model, for which Gujarat is being projected as the best example of success, for the current woes of widening gap between the rich and the poor in India. The report says, “There is evidence to suggest that the poorer sections of India were actually further marginalized under the neoliberal economic regime introduced in India in the early 1990s.” The report, in fact, states that the inequality gaps in India have increased at several layers. It says, “Poorer states lik...