Mahatma Mandir under construction By Our Representative A Right to Information (RTI) application, filed by senior activist Kirit Rathod, has revealed that the Gujarat government has refused to form a State-level Environmental Appraisal Committee (SEAC), which is supposed to provide environmental clearance to Category B projects not requiring Government of India nod, for the last six months. The result is, if the reply to the application is any guide, exactly 1,739 projects, most of them of the small entrepreneurs, have remained without being cleared since July 2013, when the former SEAC’s three-year term expired. The SEAC mainly consists of ex-bureaucrats and experts, who look into environmental issues, and examine whether a particular project would require to undergo public hearing or not.

A Dalit household during Bihar floods of 2007 Counterview Desk In a fresh move that will have a major impact on the way international donors support NGOs in countries like India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, the European Union (EU) has suggested that funding agencies should be sensitive to caste-based discrimination issues while disbursing humanitarian aid. A new EU-sponsored report, “Equality in Aid: Addressing Caste Discrimination in Humanitarian Response”, authored by Katherine Nightingale, has advised “international donors” that they should “ensure accountability” of NGOs in addressing “caste-based discrimination in all the programmes they fund, with a particular emphasis on supporting measures to address caste-based discrimination.”

By Our Representative A Gujarat government website has said that the state has witnessed “considerable degradation of the mangroves”, and big dams in the upstream are one of the major reasons behind this. The website, http://www.geciczmp.com/ , owned by the state forest department’s Integrated Coastal Zone Management Project, being implemented by the Gujarat Ecology Commission (GEC), has explained that “reduction in natural regeneration and death of the rich mangroves” has taken place “because of decreased influx of fresh water into the mangrove areas due to construction of dams, both small and big, in upstream areas.”

By Our Representative Protest against the construction of the Garudeshwar weir across Narmada river, about 12 kilometres downstream of the Narmada dam, took a new turn on the Republic Day when senior activists of the environmental group Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti, Vadodara, and women’s NGO Sahiyar succeeded in convincing the affected villagers about the need to intervene and stop the work which has begun. The result was, following a village-to-village campaign on January 26, on January 27 a team of women from several villages reached Narmada river along the Garudeshwar village and succeeded in ensuring a stop on the ongoing work.

Modi in Kerala in Sept 2013 By Our Representative A senior Kerala researcher, Meera Velayudhan, currently working as fellow, Council for Social Development (CSD), Hyderabad, has argued that the recent invitation forwarded to Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi to address a mass rally in Alwaye in February 2014 to commemorate 100 years of the founding of the Pulaya Mahjana Sabha, Kochi, is “shocking” and “a travesty of history”, because in 1993, the Kerala Pulayar Mahajana Sabha, which was founded in the early part of the 20th century in its fight against casteism, had protested the demotion of the Babri Masjid as “an attack on India’s secular fabric” and called for “protection of religious rights and harmony”.

A previous protest against weir By Our Representative The Sitter Gaam Adivasi Sanghathan (SGAS), an organization of 70 villages formed to oppose the proposed Garudeshwar weir being constructed 12 km downstream of the Narmada dam for promoting tourism, has decided to hold a protest rally on the Republic Day at Indravarna, one of the villages to be affected, saying, the rally will start immediately after flag-hoisting ceremony. In a statement, SGAS has said, the weir is being constructed in violation of the state environmental laws, and construction of the weir be immediately stopped.

By Our Representative A senior human rights campaigner has alleged that Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi is misusing Gujarat government’s NRI funds to “export” ministers, police officers, IAS bureaucrats and senior government functionaries to other Indian states in order to “propagate” Gujarat’s progress. Well-known anti-Modi crusader Shabman Hashmi, in association with several Gujarat-based activists Mahesh Pandya, Hemant Shah, Manan Trivedi and Gautam Thakker, said this while releasing documents which state that the government's NRI funds, meant to establish cultural ties with non-resident Gujaratis living abroad, are being illegitimately used for Modi poll propaganda.

By Our Representative The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) virus appears to have taken over, among others, non-resident Indian lobbyists for Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi in the US. California-based Mahesh Patel, who introduced himself as chairman of the Indo-American Farmers’ Coalition (IAFC), who met Modi a few days back at a farmers’ event in Gujarat, wore a cap similar to the one put up by AAP all over India while addressing Gujarat mediapersons at Hotel Harriet in Ahmedabad, even as expressing the hope that his efforts to reestablish linkages with Gujarat farmers would begin after meeting Modi in the next couple of days.

By Our Representative The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is learnt to have decided to investigate its own "policy violations" while financing a 4000 MW mega power plant at Mundra, Gujarat. It is learnt, the Board of Directors of ADB has  approved the recommendation  of its accountability mechanism, the Compliance Review Panel (CRP), for full investigation, as published in its Eligibility Report .

Dholera SIR: 50% of farmers' land up for "acquisition"  By Our Representative There is flutter among farmers of the Dholera special investment region (SIR). Farmers across 22 villages, with a rural populace of around 60,000 in the south of Ahmedabad, have been served notices citing the Gujarat SIR Act, 2009, depriving them of 50 per cent of their land they have been owning it for generations. Ishwarbhai Bhavabhai, who owns 22,663 sq metres of land in Ambli village in Dhandhuka taluka, has been told he has been allocated a different piece of land instead of the one he owns which will be 11,331 sq metres. Bhivabhai Bhawabhai of the same village, who owns 26,912 sq metres of land, has been told he has been similarly allocated 13,456 sq metres of land.

By Rajiv Shah Why is Gujarat so “backward” in education? Blame it on government schools, and promote private schools. This is the new mission sought to be put forward by one of the most high profile education advocacy groups, Pratham, which has stolen the limelight all over India for its work with policy makers for the last about eight years. This, apparently, is the only reason why, it indicates (but does not say so directly referring to the state), that Gujarat’s educational standards are so poor. And, it seems to believe, it is not government schools which can come to the children’s rescue but only a rigorous emphasis on private schools.

By Our Representative The cattle rearing population of Hansalpur village and surnding areas of North Gujarat region, where the state government has handed over 699 acres of land to the Maruti-Suzuki Ltd to set up a new auto manufacturing unit, was restrained from taking out a protest rally from Hansalpur to state capital Gandhinagar. A statement issued by Jamin Adhikar Andolan Gujarat (JAAG) said, when at around 10.00 am, with 500 cows, the maldharis were about to begin their march, “the police resorted to unprovoked and sudden lathicharge”.

By Our Representative The National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM), apex body of several to civil rights groups across India, has decided in favour of “allying” with the Aam Admi Party (AAP). The decision came at a high-level dialogue between NAPM leaders, led by Narmada Bachao Andolan’s Medha Patkar, with several AAP leader-intellectuals, including Yogendra Yadav, Prashant Bhushan and Ajit Jha. In a statement issued at the end of the deliberations held in Delhi on January 16-17, NAPM said, its individual organizations and members will be free to “intervene into electoral arena” through AAP.

By Rajiv Shah  Every year, the Gujarat government celebrates two festivals to improve the quality of education – Kanya Kelavni and Gunotsav. The latest Annual Survey of Education Report (ASER), released by top NGO Pratham, suggests that its state-sponsored drives on education have failed to make any impact on school children.  Gujarat’s much tom-tommed girl child enrolment drive, nick-named as Kanya Kelavni, appears to have gone down the drain, and there appears very little for the state government to cheer over its campaign, which began in 2004 as Mahotsav or festival, if the latest Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), 2013, released by well-known advocacy group, Pratham, is any indication. The report not only suggests that as many as three per cent of the state’s children in the age-group 6-14 are “out of school” – a criterion worked out in order to combine the children who are school dropouts and those who were never enrolled in schools. It also suggests that the three per cent

By Our Representative Fresh trouble is starting to brew for the Mandal-Bechraji special investment region (SIR) of North Gujarat, which was scaled down by the Gujarat government recently under pressure of a powerful agitation launched by the farmers under the leadership of Jameen Adhikar Andolan Gujarat (JAAG). The Gujarat government’s refusal to provide alternative land to the farmers who lost their land against the area acquired by it for the Maruti-Suzuki plant in the SIR is all set to blow into a major point of contention between it and JAAG.

A new study*, based on a survey of 250 areas and 5,827 households across five states of India, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, has found that, despite the legislations seeking to eradicate manual scavenging (the Construction of Dry Latrines and Employment of Manual Scavengers (Prohibition) Act, 1993 and the recently-enacted Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013), the system of manual scavenging still exists in India and with increasing urbanization across the country. Worse, it has the potential to spread far and wide. A report based on the survey carried out by Ahmedabad civil rights group Janvikas with the help of a dozen community based organizations (CBOs): *** Inadequate infrastructure, casteist mindset of government officials and society at large, poor implementation of legislations banning manual scavenging, internalization of caste hierarchy and complete acceptance of caste based occupations in the mi

Dholera region today By Our Representative The Jameen Adhikar Andolan Gujarat (JAAG), which is seeking to emerge as the apex body of people’s groups wanting to fight against the “anti-farmer” land acquisition policies in dozen-odd special investment regions (SIRs) of Gujarat, has decided to replicate the “successful”, “tried” and “time-tested” actions used against Mandal-Bechraji SIR in North Gujarat elsewhere, too. In a statement issued in Ahmedabad, JAAG said, which forced down the state government to scale down the Mandal-Bechraji SIR’s area from 44 to 36 villages, said, it will agitate against the Dholera SIR, being planned on 900 sq km area in Ahmedabad district off Gulf of Khambhat, in the same intensive way as it did in the North Gujarat SIR.

Sanjiv Bhatt By Our Representative Gujarat’s topcop Sanjiv Bhatt, who was suspended for taking up cudgels against Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, may not join the Aam Admi Party (AAP), which has begun to attract influential sections of civil society in India and Gujarat. Taking part in an internal discussion in Ahmedabad, Bhatt told a senior AAP activist that there is still “no clarity” in AAP’s ideological leanings, especially on issues of secularism and communal riots. “I have yet to hear AAP taking a stance on the communal riots in Muzaffarnagar, though they took place after the party was formed. It uttered no word about it during the Delhi elections”, he said.

By Our Representative In a major boost to the Aam Admi Party (AAP), the National Alliance for People's Movements (NAPM), which is the apex body of tens of civil rights organizations of India, has decided to extend support to AAP. In a statement issued in Mumbai, NAPM, which is led by top social activist Medha Patkar of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NAPM), said, “A number of attempts by small and large parties and fora to create an alternative to the mainstream politics, creating space for those at margins by the power holders, have played a role in the past. Once again and with a difference, the concern of the masses has led to the formation of AAP, reflecting a need for changing the political cultures and system.”

A recent study by Janvikas highlights lack of basic infrastructure facilities in 63 areas of Muslim-dominated areas of Gujarat. Excerpts: *** The Sachar Committee, constituted by the Prime Minister, had found glaring underdevelopment in infrastructure (water, sanitation facilities, banks, educational institutions, approach roads) in Muslim concentrated areas, under-representation of Muslims in employment sector, under-representation of Muslims in governance and common spaces, negligible access to credit from nationalized banks and other allied sectors, inequity, and unequal opportunities. To overcome these problems, the Prime Minister launched a 15-point programme for the welfare of minorities in 2006. Janvikas, an NGO based in Ahmedabad, undertook a study to assess the status of implementation of the point programme in Muslim concentrated areas in Gujarat. The study looked at the physical infrastructure available in Muslim dominated areas and the institutional mechanism for implementa

By Our Representative In a major breakthrough for the Narmada oustees of Madhya Pradesh’s Alirajpur district, the state government has agreed to hand over land to them instead of paying compensation in cash to those who lose land because of the Narmada dam, currently stationary at 121.92 metres in Gujarat. The Gujarat government wants the resettlement issue of the Narmada oustees to be solved urgently in order to take the dam's height to the full reservoir level (FRL), 138.64 metres, at the earliest.

By Rajiv Shah Gujarat industry’s net value added (NVA), which is calculated by deducting all the depreciation charges – including consumption of fixed capital such as on raw materials, power and other inputs – has suddenly gone into the minus, surprising many an economist. The latest Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) data, put out in the first week of this month, suggest that NVA, which economists consider as “indicating the actual investment potential of a sector of economy”, has gone into the negative for two consecutive years continuously. It was minus (--) 0.64 per cent in 2010-11 and, again, minus (--) 1.72 per cent in 2011-12. The ASI is the principal source of data on various aspects of registered industrial establishments. They are part of the annual exercise by the Government of India’s Central Statistics Office’s industrial statistics wing.

A report on the Joint Citizens’ Initiative hearing of the Muzaffarnagar riots victims close on the heels of the UP government’s efforts to close down the relief camps: *** Participating in an event organized by Joint Citizens’ Initiative (JCI), a collective of NGOs and individuals for relief, rehabilitation and justice in Muzaffarnagar, representatives of victims of the Muzaffarnagar riots, which rocked the state in August-end 2013, said the Uttar Pradesh’s government machinery has refused to acknowledge displacement of families from villages where violence broke out. The victims visited Lucknow to represent before to the JCI’s NGO jury for hearing on January 7. Accusing the state government of playing “partisan” in offering relief and rehabilitation to Muzaffarnagar survivors, they added, the survivors were being forced to sign affidavits saying “they would not return to their villages, not live on government land, and not live in a relief camp” in exchange for relief money. One of th

Gulberg society after the attack By Our Representative The Human Rights Defenders Alert – India (HRDAI) has sounded an urgent appeal for action against the Gujarat police registering an FIR against well-known social worker Teesta Setalvad and four other human rights defenders, who are fighting for justice to Gujarat riots victims. Expressing “grave concern” regarding the latest round of “vindictive” actions against human rights defender Teesta Setalvad, secretary, Citizen's for Justice and Peace (CJP) and others, against whom the Gujarat Police Crime Branch has registered a “false FIR” on “malicious grounds of cheating”, the HRDAI has said, action is particularly needed as they face “the threat of arrest.”

By Our Representative Fresh indications have emerged that the cash-again-land scheme, “worked out” for the Narmada dam oustees of Mahdya Pradesh (MP) as rehabilitation package by Gujarat government a decade ago allegedly to get over the “scarcity of land” problem in MP, has boomeranged. The National Alliance for People’s Movements (NAPM), an apex body of tens of civil rights groups across India, has informed that “hundreds of adivasis and farmers, representing the oustees affected by the Sardar Sarovar and Jobat dam projects in the Alirajpur district of Madhya Pradesh stormed the office of collector NP Deheria and engaged in a day-long protest, demanding the immediate of 40 adivasis, including six women.”

By Our Representative In a fresh incident of forced migration, Dalit families of Bhodadhar village of Ranavav taluka, Porbandar district, were coerced to leave their place of living, following upper caste persons destroying their houses. Bringing the incident to the notice of Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, who is also chairman of the SC-ST monitoring committee of the state government, senior activist of the Navsarjan Trust, Kantilal Parmar, has alleged the house were destroyed with the “malicious intention to force the Dalits out of the village.” He added, “The houses were destroyed with by using JCB machines, and the reason was -- the Dalits had refused to take back their police complaint under the anti-atrocities law.”

By Our Representative Two environmental groups, Paryavaran Mitra and Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti (PSS), have written separate letters to the Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) and the Union environment and forests secretary, respectively, saying that the environmental public hearing (EPH) held for the proposed Dholera special investment region (SIR) at Dholera on January 3, 2014, should be declared null and void, as it violated the Environmental Impact Assessment notification of 2006. The SIR is proposed as a modern industrial township on about 900 sq km land in the south of Ahmedabad city, next to the Gulf of Khambhat.

By Rajiv Shah  That Gujarat has failed to govern well in improving its health indicators was once again established by the latest data on maternal mortality ratio (MMR), released by the Office of the Registrar General of India. Latest data released by the Office of the Registrar General of India – which is responsible for collecting, collating and releasing census figures for the country as a whole – have revealed that Gujarat has once again failed to perform as well as majority of Indian states in reducing maternal mortality ratio (MMR). MMR, according to a presentation made by the Office of the Registrar General, refers to “the number of women who die as a result of complications of pregnancy or childbearing in a given year per 1,00,000 live births.” While at 122 MMR per one lakh live child births is better than all states but five – except Kerala (66), Maharashtra (87), Tamil Nadu (90), Andhra Pradesh (110) and West Bengal (117) – the rate of reduction in MMR should be a matter a ma

By Our Representative Failure to get forest and environmental clearance for laying down Rs 826 crore submarine pipeline to tap the gas found off Andhra Pradesh coast has cost former bluechip public sector undertaking (PSU), Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation (GSPC), dear. Latest information available from an internal note has suggested that the GSPC will have to shell out a total of around another US dollars 123.66 – which comes to around Rs 760 crore – as “standby” or “idle” charges to Punj Lloyd Ltd (PLL), the top multinational contractors who were hired in an international bid, to lay down the submarine pipeline in 2011.

By Our Representative Close on the heels of the Ahmedabad crime branch registering FIR against well-known human rights activist Teesta Setalvad and her colleagues for “breach of trust, cheating and conspiracy” by refusing to convert the Gulbarg society into a riots museum, Setalvad has accused the FIR “a deliberate campaign to vilify the efforts to procure justice for the victims of the carnage of 2002 that has been sustained and supported by vested powerful interests in Gujarat.” The Gulberg society massacre saw murder of former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri and tens of others who lived in the colony on February 28. In a statement, Setalvad said, the FIR has been filed with “mala fide attempts to embroil us in false cases before the Gujarat police.”

By Our Representative Former director general of police (DGP) of Gujarat, PGJ Nampoothari, better known as human rights champion, has stirred the hornet’s nest by sounding a different chord from the civil society by declaring that “there is no need” for a separate anti-communal violence Bill, which the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) has been contemplating since 2004, and whose draft was made public for discussion in 2011. Known as the Prevention of Communal Violence (Access to Justice and Reparations) Bill, Nampoothiri believes that, instead of introducing the Bill, all that one needs to do is to “make government officials in charge to be made criminally responsible for failure to control riots.”

By Rajiv Shah  Former Gujarat DGP PGJ Nampoothari, who was emissary of the National Human Rights Commission during the Gujarat riots, monitoring the aftermath of the tragedy which befell the state in 2002, says that there’s nothing to suggest that the state administration acted in an impartial way during the riots. He is a retired top cop, who is better known as a human rights activist. Indeed, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi wasn’t quite off the mark when he privately remarked with a sense of prerplexity about him to a senior IPS officer, “Who doesn’t know PGJ Nampoothiri?” Ex-director general of police (DGP) of Gujarat, who first attracted attention during his intensive investigations as CBI officer into the Harshad Mehta security scam in the early 1990s, Nampoothiri shot into fame as special rapporteur of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) following the Gujarat riots. Between 2002 and 2007, Nampoothiri monitored and reported to the NHRC the manner in which the Gujarat