A research-based study of budgets of major Indian states by a top advocacy group, Accountability Initiative, has found that despite loud claims of the Gujarat government about its “rising budgetary allocation” for the social sector, things have failed to improve much vis-à-vis several other states, at least with regard to primary education. The study, titled “Do Schools Get Their Money? Paisa 2012”, released this year, has found that not only does Gujarat government allocate less funds in its budget for primary school education compared to other states, expenditure per student, too, has been going down. The result is, quality of education at the primary level has suffered badly. Claiming to be the “first and only citizen-led effort at the national level to track public expenditure”, the study is based on a survey of over 14,000 schools across India (14,591 in 2012), and seeks to investigate how grants in Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), which is Government of India’s (GoI’s) primary vehicl...

The National Alliance for People’s Movements (NAPM), which is the apex body of more than a dozen mass organisations operating in different parts of India, has said that the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill 2011, passed in the Lok Sabha, seeks to provide legitimacy to land acquisition for 'private profit' in the name of public purpose. By introducing the Bill, “the UPA is hiding behind the poor and this brazen push for the land acquisition for the private companies will threaten food security and livelihood of millions”, NAPM has said in a statement.

The CRISIL Research -- which has made a quick assessment of the impact of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2012 (formerly known as the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2011) on real estate,  infrastructure and industry -- has said that the Bill will lead to “increase in the gestation time of projects and overall costs.” The Bill was passed in the Lok Sabha on August 30, 2013. The bill, which replaces the century-old Land Acquisition Act, 1894, proposes a unified legislation for acquisition of land and adequate rehabilitation mechanisms for all affected persons.

Prominent social activist Aruna Roy has written to Sonia Gandhi, UPA chairperson, asking her to urgently hold discussions with right to information (RTI) activists on contention issues on amending the RTI Act before going ahead the proposed amendment which seeks to keep political parties out of the RTI ambit. Enclosing a letter from the co-conveners of the National Campaign for Peoples’ Right to Information (NCPRI), she said, “The proposed RTI Amendment Bill should be referred to a Standing Committee for further discussion”, instead of passing it in Parliament.

Latest National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) data on India’s employment trend has suggested that there is a relatively slow movement of Gujarat’s workforce from the agricultural sector to the non-agricultural sectors than the rest of India – the secondary sector (which includes manufacturing, mining and construction; and the tertiary sector, which include wholesale and retail trade, repair work, transportation, information and communication, real state, finance and insurance, education and health, and professional services. While any movement from agriculture to industry and services is regarded by economists as a “natural” corollary to development of a vibrant economy, the slow movement, if experts are to be believed, would suggest two simultaneous trends – Gujarat’s higher capital intensive industrialization, on one hand, and failure to develop such sectors like information and communication technology as part of development of services, on the other. The NSSO figures show that ...

A recent analysis of the way different state governments have been handling rural health suggests that Gujarat is one of the three major states in India which have slowed down their expenditure on various programmes being implemented under the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), the Government of India’s largest public health programme. Launched in 2005, a breakup of expenditure for two consecutive years, financial year (FY) 2010-11 and 2011-12, suggests wide gap between states in implementing it.

Will Gujarat’s riot victims, especially those who were displaced during the carnage that rocked the state following the burning of the Sabarmati Express at Godhra railway station on February 27, 2002, ever be shown Sadbhavna (or compassion) by the Gujarat government by providing them with jobs in government or semi-government agencies? While some compensation has been paid to the victims of 1,169 persons who were officially killed during the carnage, as also to those who suffered injury or those whose property was damaged, this was only following Government of India disbursement of funds. Meanwhile, a distinct view has emerged among human rights activists that such type of compensation is not enough to ensure that the riot victims start living a normal life. More than one lakh people were internally displaced during the riots. They were forced to flee their home. Thousands have still not be able to return to their original place of living and are living in 86 relief colonies built acro...

Proactive disclosure under the right to information (RTI) Act underscores the need to voluntarily disclose information on subsidy schemes, which should be published and updated on a monthly basis. In this overall framework, the Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India, directed all states to not just kick-start social audit of the working of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), under which jobs are legally guaranteed to the rural poor for 100 days in a year to adult members of any household willing to do unskilled manual public work at the statutory minimum wage of Rs 120 per day in 2009 prices, failing which the government has to pay the salary at home. It also directed states to make voluntary disclosure of such social audit. The working of MGNREGS in Gujarat has come under attack from those who are considered detractors of the state government. A Government of India document having “VIP Reference” gives a list of 17 such complaints. Well...

Pipavav port seen from Shiyalbet The National Green Tribunal (NGT), which is supposed to settle disputes arising out of environmental clearances (EC) granted to developmental projects, has set aside the environmental clearance (EC) granted for expansion of the Gujarat Pipavav Port Ltd, one of the two major private ports on Gujarat coast. EC was given by the Ministry Environment and Forests (MoEF) following a report by the Expert Appraisal Committee (AEC), which operates under it. The NGT has asked the MoEF to make a complete reassessment of the expansion project and complete all the formalities afresh.

In a controversial statement, the Gujarat government’s powerful arm implementing the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP), Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Ltd (SSNNL), has said that Madhya Pradesh has yet to pay up a whopping Rs 3,159.88 crore against the nieghbouring state’s share of expenditure in the SSP, followed by Maharashtra’s Rs 1,437.50 crore and Rajasthan’s Rs 471.70 crore. The statement is an “update” as on May 12, 2013 of the “Status Report on SSP”, sent by the SSNNL to the Narmada Control Authority (NCA) – the Government of India-appointed inter-state authority to give a final nod to the project’s various components – in December 2012.

Top Gujarat human rights organization, Navsarjan Trust, has protested against the Gujarat government’s failure to pay compensation to the nearest kin of Premjibhai Palabhai Dafda, a Dalit farmer of Bhachau in Kutch district, aged 46, who was murdered in broad daylight on August 11. Senior activist Kantibhai Parmar, who rushed to Bhachau on hearing the gruesome murder, said, under the prevention of the atrocities Act, Dafda’s family should have been paid 75 per cent of the compensation they are entitled to – which is Rs 5 lakh in case of the murder is of an earning family member.

Seven years after the committee headed by Justice (retired) Rajinder Sachar, appointed by the Prime Minister to quantify relative backwardness among Indian Muslims, submitted its report revealing how the minority community remained on the back-foot in education and other social sectors vis-à-vis other communities, a new report by the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) has given state-wise inter-religious comparisons, belying claims by certain quarters that Gujarat Muslims have lately been doing better than the rest of India and other communities. Released in July 2013 and titled “Employment and Unemployment Situation among Major Religious Groups in India”, the report is particularly important as it provides facts on not just literacy levels of different communities, but also rate of attendance in educational institutions. The report finds 81.4 per cent attendance rate of Hindu children of the age group 5-14 in Gujarat’s educational institutes. This is against 78.7 per cent rat...

Land reclamation at Mundra Gujarat’s most powerful industrial house, Adani Group, has declared that the proposed ship recycling facility to be set up next to the Mundra Port does “not fall in any eco-fragile zone”, nor has it received any instructions from the Government of India regarding objections raised by the committee headed by top environmentalist Sunita Narain’s report to the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), which has charged the Adanis with serious violations of environmental norms by the group along the sea coast of Mundra in the recent past.

In was January-end 2008. I was planning a story on spurt of investment in Kutch district of Gujarat after the killer quake of January 26, 2001. I called up RJ Shah, then chief principal industrial advisor (a strange designation, I thought, principal and chief together!), and he immediately responded, saying, he had all the details and I should reach his office in the industries commissionerate in Udyog Bhawan, Gandhinagar. A diligent government official who always had all the industry figures on his tips – something which is a rarity in the babudom today – Shah scanned through his papers and was simply awestruck: “This is absolutely marvelous. Kutch has as of today Rs 78,688 crore worth of investment under implementation, which comes to 39 per cent of Gujarat.” Then, Shah decided to have a closer look at the investment proposals, and one of them happened to be a solar project. “Wait, wait, wait”, he looked through his traditional spectacles. “This is really very strange. This solar pr...

In Amla Khadi In a letter to the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), top Gujarat-based environment group,  Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti, has urged the Government of India to ask industrial units of the Panoli Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC) estate to bear the cost of Sanjali pond decontamination following dumping of industrial effluents, and pay for setting up two pollution-monitoring stations in village Sanjali and next to the National Highway. The letter has also asked the Centre to "strong steps" against units in Ankleshwar GIDC estate, for not doing enough to stop effluent contaminated rainwater from gushing from Amla Khadi towards Piraman, Ankleshwar and Diva villages.

In a sharply-worded letter, Krishnakant, Rohit Prajapati and Swati Desai of the Praryavaran Suraksha Samiti (PSS) have told Secretary, Ministry of Environment & Forests, Government of India, that they has still not heard from the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited on the "non-serious, casually submitted CRZ clearance / recommendation for CRZ clearance given to the proposed NPP (Nuclear Power Plant) of Mithi Virdi by the Gujarat Coastal Zone Management Authority (GCZMA)."

In a scathing reply to the Gujarat government-sponsored study, “Impact of Caste Discrimination and Distinctions on Equal Opportunities: A Study of Gujarat”, carried out in five of Gujarat’s villages to “prove” that there is no wide-scale practice of untouchability in the state, a “resurvey” in the same five villages has found it prevails in all its manifestations.  Carried out by Navsarjan Trust, a state human rights organization, the “resurvey” says that in every walk of life – whether it is temple entry, social or cultural festivals, or access to basic necessities – untouchability is widely prevalent, something the government-supported study has sought to "undermine".

Lalji Desai and Sagar Rabari of the Jameen Adhikar Aandolan – Gujarat (JAAG) have in a statement said that Gujarat government announcement of removal of 36 villages from the Mandal-Bhechraji special investment region (SIR) is an "incomplete victory" for the farmers agitating against the SIR for the last four months. In a press conference, state finance minister Nitin Patel declared that the state government had decided to remove 36 villages from the SIR, but would retain eight villages.

Close on the heels of the Government of India announcing its intention to place the Bill amending the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, during the current session of Parliament, National Alliance for People’s Movements (NAPM), in a statement, has regretted that it may have some “positive points” like seeking majority consent, conducting Social Impact Assessment, an expanded definition of project affected persons, return of land in some cases to land owners. However, on the whole, it seeks to increase the role of the state in land acquisition. Saying that the bill is “tilted towards facilitating land acquisition”, the statement adds, this is one of the major reasons why “consensus on the bill has eluded for long and it has been under the discussion for seventh year now."

The Gujarat government has claimed that there exists a huge support for the Bhadbhut weir-cum-causeway, which it is seeking to implement by spending Rs 4,000 crore on the mouth of Narmada river. Revealing this in the minutes of the Environmental Public Hearing (EPH) on Bhadbhut, put on the Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) website (click HERE to see minutes), the state government has said, “Out of total 54 written representations received with respect to the public hearing, 32 representations are with affirmative nod, i.e. fully supporting this project, having multi-facet benefits for its implementation in the interest of public at large”. However, an analysis of the 32 “positive” written responses reveals certain glaring discrepancies. First of all, of the 32 “positive responses” which have been purportedly been handed over to the Bharuch district collector, who was chairman of the EPH, held on July 19, there is just one environmental organization, which too operates from the pr...

In a major admission, the Gujarat government has said that government pleaders are so preoccupied with their jobs that they are “unable to address” and give “enough time” to fight cases related with Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. A government resolution (GR) issued by the state’s social justice and empowerment department with the specific intention of raising the conviction rate of atrocities cases has said that in the recent past the state government has witnessed a sharp fall in the ability to take up atrocity cases.

One of most naïve arguments on rural areas, including those of Gujarat, has been regarding their homogeneous characteristic — the existence of “harmonious” social relations in which “self-sufficient” village communities live in a peaceful atmosphere. Based on this type of thinking, the Gujarat chief minister began his now famous “samras” experiment, under which village panchayats elected uncontested should be rewarded. However, sociologists have long demonstrated that in areas of strong homogeneity, there is a general tendency to repress controversy. As a result, when disagreements arise, they can result into serious crises. Well-known human rights organization Navsarjan Trust’s documentary evidence, collected from several villages of Gujarat, recorded in several of its reports (click HERE to see them) has long suggested how such homogeneity in a caste-ridden society is a sham. Despite efforts by Dalit NGOs to fight discrimination against Dalits, as evidenced during their representati...

Pankti Jog A huge scam is suspected to be taking shape in Gujarat -- the scam to build toilets on paper. The first signs of the scam were visible in a small village in Jamnagar district, Nandana, situated in Kalyanapur taluka. "Things would have never come to light had a casual worker not filed a right to information (RTI) application in order to find out how many persons of the village had applied for grants to build individual toilets in their houses and how many of them were approved by the District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) under Government of India's total sanitation programme", said senior activist Pankti Jog of the Mahiti Adhikar Gujarat Pahel (MAGP), a state-based RTI NGO.

The Gujarat government is planning a huge mela of village panchayat leaders from all over the country in Gandhinagar on August 17, 2013. Last year, it was a state-level function, where awards were distributed to those village panchayats which elected their bodies and sarpanches without contest, thus becoming “samras” panchayats. However, facts collected by Navsarjan Trust, Ahmedabad-based human rights organization, suggest that caste dynamics in villages are so strong that such “samras” show has little or no meaning. Latest information collected by the NGO suggest that the Gujarat ruling establishment’s all-out efforts to “encourage” homogeneity in the state’s rural areas by having as many “samras” village panchayats without elections as possible are already coming to a naught. Documentary evidence collected on the basis of field reports show that at a large number of places, the upper castes are not only refusing to give up their hegemony, but are doing all they can in their capacity...