Death of three workers in Surat sewerage plant: What's there to investigate now, wonder NGOs

By Our Representative
No sooner the Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) constituted a committee to "investigate" if there was negligence on part of the contractor, Enviro Control Associates, operating the sewage treatment plant (STP) at Singanpore, where three contract labourers died on July 9 because of suffocation in a chamber of the plant, voluntary organisations fighting for the cause of manual scavengers in Gujarat have declared it is an "eye-wash." The committee consists of three members -- city engineer Jatin Shah, former city engineer V D Patel and associate professor of L D Engineer College, C G Bhagchandan.
In a statement issued in the wake of the constitution of the committee on Sunday, Kamdar Swasthya Suraksha Mandal (KSSM) said "there is nothing to investigate", as the death has taken place as a result of negligence on the part of the the contractors. KSSM's Hoslaprasad Mishra added, "The KSSM and other organisations fighting for the cause of the manual scavengers have decided to come together and press on action against the culprits. We will go public with our demands. The committee has little meaning, as the contractor allowed workers to enter the chamber without protective instruments."
Four labourers had suffered poisonous effects of hydrogen sulphide and ethane gases. They had gone inside the 10-feet concrete chamber to open the valve placed near the clarifier at the STP. One of the labourers was shifted to a private hospital, where his condition has been described as "stable." Already, the Enviro Control Associates has admitted that he did not equip workers with proper breathing apparatus and other safety equipment at the plant. With the death of these three workers, the total number of who have died because of suffocation poisonous gas in sewerage facilities has reached 86 since 2005.
The death of the workers in Surat comes close on the heels of National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) notice on the Gujarat government over the latter’s failure to pay compensation payable against the death of gutter workers in the state. The notice asked Gujarat chief secretary Varesh Sinha to provide “complete details” on why compensation has still not been paid to the kin of as many as 29 safai kamdars. Under an August 2009 notification, the Gujarat government was obliged increase the payment from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 2 lakh to the kin of those gutter workers who die on duty.
The NHRC notice is based on a complaint filed by a state-based NGO, Navsarjan Trust, which had complained that, between 2005 and 2012, as many as 80 gutter workers had died in the state while on work due to suffocation they suffered from on entering the underground gutters. Yet, so far, compensation had not been paid to 29 workers. “This has come to light in a Right to Information (RTI) application filed by us", the trust‘s.senior activist Kirit Rathod said.
In 2013, as many as six more workers have already died due to suffocation -- one in the state capital, Gandhinagar on March 23, 2013, the second one in Godhra on April 20, 2013, the third in Gandhidham, at the Kandla Port Trust, on June 8, 2013, and three others in Surat a few days back. This has taken the total number of gutter workers against whom no compensation has not been paid to 36. Rathod made his complaint to NHRC on June 16, 2013, which made NHRC to issue the notice.
“In all, nine gutter workers die every year in Gujarat. The highest number of deaths have taken place in Ahmedabad, 18. We have been told that cases for paying compensation are pending before the Safai Kamdar Development Corporation“, Rathod said, adding, “In all there are 50,000 safai kamdars in Gujarat. There is a sizeable number of them who work as gutter cleaners. There are few who work even as manual scavengers, continuing with the despicable practice of cleaning nigh soil.”

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Congress 'promises' cancellation of Adani power project: Jharkhand elections

Counterview Desk
Pointing out that people's issues take a backseat in Jharkhand's 2019 assembly elections, the state's civil rights organization, the Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha, a coalition of activists and people’s organisations, has said that political parties have largely ignored in their electoral manifestos the need to implement the fifth schedule of the Constitution in a predominantly tribal district.

Gujarat refusal to observe Maulana Azad's birthday as Education Day 'discriminatory'

By Our Representative
The Gujarat government decision not to celebrate the National Education Day on !monday has gone controversial. Civil society organizations have particularly wondered whether the state government is shying away from the occasion, especially against the backdrop of "deteriorating" level of education in Gujarat.

Hindutva founders 'borrowed' Nazi, fascist idea of one flag, one leader, one ideology

By Shamsul Islam*
With the unleashing of the reign of terror by the RSS/BJP rulers against working-class, peasant organizations, women organizations, student movements, intellectuals, writers, poets and progressive social/political activists, India also witnessed a series of resistance programmes organized by the pro-people cultural organizations in different parts of the country. My address in some of these programmes is reproduced here...
*** Before sharing my views on the tasks of artists-writers-intellectuals in the times of fascism, let me briefly define fascism and how it is different from totalitarianism. Totalitarianism is political concept, a dictatorship of an individual, family or group which prohibits opposition in any form, and exercises an extremely high degree of control over public and private life. It is also described as authoritarianism.
Whereas fascism, while retaining all these repressive characteristics, also believes in god-ordained superiority of race, cultur…

Ex-World Bank chief economist doubts spurt in India's ease of doing business rank

By Rajiv Shah
This is in continuation of my previous blog where I had quoted from a commentary which top economist Prof Kaushik Basu had written in the New York Times (NYT) a little less than a month ago, on November 6, to be exact. He recalled this article through a tweet on November 29, soon after it was made known that India's growth rate had slumped (officially!) to 4.5%.

With RSS around, does India need foreign enemy to undo its democratic-secular fabric?

By Shamsul Islam*
Many well-meaning liberal and secular political analysts are highly perturbed by sectarian policy decisions of RSS/BJP rulers led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, especially after starting his second inning. They are vocal in red-flagging lynching incidents, policies of the Modi government on Kashmir, the National Register of Citizens (NRC), the demand for 'Bharat Ratna' to Savarkar who submitted 6-7 mercy petitions to the British masters (getting remission of 40 years out of 50 years' sentence), and the murder of constitutional norms in Goa, Karnataka and now in Maharashtra.

Girl child education: 20 major states 'score' better than Gujarat, says GoI report

By Rajiv Shah
A Government of India report, released last month, has suggested that “model” Gujarat has failed to make any progress vis-à-vis other states in ensuring that girls continue to remain enrolled after they leave primary schools. The report finds that, in the age group 14-17, Gujarat’s 71% girls are enrolled at the secondary and higher secondary level, which is worse than 20 out of 22 major states for which data have been made available.

Rushdie, Pamuk, 260 writers tell Modi: Aatish episode casts chill on public discourse

Counterview Desk
As many as 260 writers, journalists, artists, academics and activists across the world, including Salman Rushdie, British Indian novelist, Orhan Pamuk, Turkish novelist and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in literature, and Margaret Atwood, Canadian poet and novelist, have called upon Prime Minister Narendra Modi to review the decision to strip British Indian writer Aatish Taseer of his overseas Indian citizenship.

Worrying signs in BJP: Modi, Shah begin 'cold-shouldering' Gujarat CM, party chief

By RK Misra*
The political developments in neighbouring Maharashtra where a Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress government assumed office has had a trickle down effect in Gujarat with both the ruling BJP and the Congress opposition going into revamp mode.

Post-Balakot, danger that events might spiral out of control is 'greater, not less'

By Tapan Bose*
The fear of war in South Asia is increasing. Tensions are escalating between India and Pakistan after the Indian defence minister's announcement in August this year that India may revoke its current commitment to only use nuclear weapons in retaliation for a nuclear attack, known as ‘no first use’. According to some experts who are watching the situation the risk of a conflict between the two countries has never been greater since they both tested nuclear weapons in 1998.

'Favouring' tribals and ignoring Adivasis? Behind coercion of India's aborigines

By Mohan Guruswamy*
Tribal people account for 8.2% of India’s population. They are spread over all of India’s States and Union Territories. Even so they can be broadly classified into three groupings. The first grouping consists of populations who predate the Indo-Aryan migrations. These are termed by many anthropologists as the Austro-Asiatic-speaking Australoid people.

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