Thakor Fatesinh Rathod By A Representative Two more workers, who were suffering from silicosis and were working in the agate industry, have died in Khambhat in Central Gujarat. A People's Training and Research Centre (PTRC), the Vadodara-based NGO which has been taking up silicosis workers' problems for the last several years, has said that who who have "succumbed to their disease in this week" are Thakor Fatesinh Rathod, who died on March 30, 2014, and Jivan Kalidas Baraiya, who died on March 23, 2014. With this, the total number of those who have died as a result of the deadly disease has reached six.

Percent factories operational By Rajiv Shah The latest Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) report, released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Government of India, in March 2014, has revealed that out of a total of 22,220 factories in Gujarat, 17,529 are operational, suggesting that 21.11 per cent of the factories are either “closed” or are “not in operation”. This is higher than the all-India average of 19.33 per cent factories, “closed” or “not in operation”, but is lower than two major states out of 20 -- Haryana (21.42 per cent) and Tamil Nadu (37.95 per cent).

By A Representative In an order, the Gujarat government has declared that the tribals and Dalits, who become victims of atrocities perpetrated by a group consisting of tribals or Dalits, on one hand, and other communities, on the other, would also be compensated under the prevention of scheduled tribe and caste (ST/SC) atrocities Act. Issued ahead of the declaration of the Lok Sabha elections, on February 24, 2014, the order has come in the wake of incidents like Patan gang rape case, in which two of the five convicted for life -- Manish Parmar and Ashwin Parmar -- were Dalits. Non-Dalits convicts are Kiran Patel, Mahendra Prajapati and Suresh Patel.

By A Representative In a major boost to Gujarat, the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), Government of India, has given environmental and coastal regulatory zone (CRZ) clearance for the development of all-weather port at Chhara village, Junagarh District, to its developers, the Shapoorji Pallonji Group. While giving the clearance, provided a week before Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi made the controversial statement , accusing former Union environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan of charging what he called "Jayanthi tax" and derailing many a project, the MoEF agreed with the developers' view that the location of the site “is not an eco-sensitive area”, and the “nearest wetland is about three km away”.

Dholera farmers' meet By A Representative Ahead of the proposed agitation against the Dholera Special Investment Region (DSIR) on March 29, the Gujarat police in the wee hours of March 26 arrested one of the senior farmer leaders of the area, Rajbha Chudasma. A statement issued by Jamin Adhikar Andolan Gujarat (JAAG), which organized the agitation, called arrest as smacking of “political pressure to suppress a non-political movement”. To be implemented in the south of Ahmedabad in 22 villages encompassing 900 sq km, DSIR has been envisaged as a modern industrial township in the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC), but has invited farmers’ ire over Gujarat government decision to take away 50 per cent of the farmers’ land in the name of developing infrastructure.

Gulberg Society, March 2002 By A Representative Nearly 150 prominent citizens -- mainly activists, academics and professionals -- have expressed their “deep shock” at the rejection of the anticipatory bail application of top human rights activist Teesta Setalvad and four others in the so-called Gulberg embezzlement case by the city sessions court of Ahmedabad. The statement said, “From its beginning, the so-called embezzlement has been the concoction of elements instigated by the Government of Gujarat, including the Gujarat crime branch.” It culminated in January 2014, when an FIR was registered against the five for “defrauding the members of the Gulberg Society of funds meant for the building of the Gulberg Memorial commemorating the state-sponsored carnage.”

By Rajiv Shah  Gujarat government may be happy that Government of India reports have been saying that Gujarat has fewer unemployed than other states. However, latest reports, including the Academic Foundation’s “India Labour and Employment Report 2014” and the National Sample Survey Organisation’s “Employment and Unemployment Situation in India, 2011-12” report point towards the need to look at the problem of underemployment, which is higher in Gujarat than several Indian states. The Gujarat government has for long been claiming that its unemployment rate is one of the lowest. Quoting the Labour Bureau data, released by the Government of India, it said recently (click HERE to read) that Gujarat’s unemployment rate in the year 2011-12 “has the least unemployment rate among all states across the country”. Celebrating it as Gujarat government success, it officially declared, “According to the report, while India’s jobless rate stood at 3.8 per cent during the last fiscal, Gujarat sho...

By Rajiv Shah  Raising a controversy, two well-known economists, Prof Jadgish Bhagwati and Prof Arvind Panagariya, known for what have been called “neo-liberal” views, have sought to justify Gujarat riots, saying that they were not a “pogrom” and were not targeted against any particular religious group. Professors at the Columbia University, so far both of them have refrained any comment on Gujarat riots, even as praising Gujarat’s economic growth model, and how, in their view, Gujarat development has led to improvement in the social sector, especially health and education.

By A Representative  A fresh report on labour and employment situation in India, prepared by a high-profile organisation, believes that low labour force participation rate in India is largely because the female labour force’s participation rate is dismally low.  “India Labour and Employment Report 2014”, published by Academic Foundation, New Delhi, which created a ripple recently for coming up with a report in association with several other institutes of learning which said Gujarat is No 1 state in economic freedom index, has ranked the state as No 12th out of a total of 21 states it has chosen for analysis for working out an Employment Situation Index. The report finds that Himachal Pradesh is the best state in employment state, ranking it No 1, followed by Delhi, Haryana, Karnataka, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Kerala, and Rajasthan. Despite relatively low ranking of Gujarat in Employment Situation Index (ESI), the report says, “Gener...

By A Representative Facts have come to light suggesting that there is something extremely suspicious with the data in the new report prepared by the Government of India-appointed committee headed by Jawaharlal Nehru University’s (JNU’s) Prof Amitabh Kundu on the condition of Muslims in India. The report is a follow-up of the famous Sachar Committee report of 2006, which had pointed towards negligence of the minorities, especially Muslims, in different social sectors, particularly education and health, and seeks to suggest that poverty in rural and urban Gujarat went down drastically between 2004-05 and 2011-12.

By A Representative Has the Gujarat government’s “neo-liberal” economic persuasion, which presupposes that economic growth leads to automatic development of the social sector, including income, education and health, begun to work? It would seem to, if one of the latest reports, hurriedly released by the UPA government alongside the announcement of the Lok Sabha elections, is any indication. An updated version of the India Human Development Report 2011, released on March 11, 2014, suggests that Gujarat’s human development index (HDI) sharply rose by 26.77 per cent, between 2007-08 and 2011-12, which is one of the best in India!

By A Representative The Citizens for Peace and Justice (CJP), the NGO fighting cases of 2002 Gujarat communal riot victims, has accused the Gujarat police for spreading “blatant falsehoods, twisted facts, deliberate jugglery of accounts and foul innuendos” in an attempt to implicate it in a fraud case. In a statement, the CJP said, the affidavit filed by KN Patel on behalf of the crime branch on March 18, 2014 that the CJP and social activists Teesta Setalvad and Javed Anand have been siphoning off Rs 75,28,000 belonging to the CJP and Sabrang Trust for personal use is based on “falsehoods, twisted facts, deliberate jugglery”.

Overall Human Development Index By A Representative  “India Human Development Report 2011” was recently updated in view of new facts on income, education and health indices. Despite the fact that Gujarat has improved along with other states, its improvement is not as fast as the national average. The updated version of the “India Human Development Report 2011”, released at a seminar in New Delhi on March 11, 2014, has found that the six states which have low human development index (HDI) – Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Assam – have registered a much better improvement in HDI than several of the progressive states, including Gujarat. The report goes a long way to suggest that the percolation theory – which presupposes improvement in social sector even as economic growth rate improves — does not really work. Prepared by the Institute of Applied Manpower Research (IAMR), Planning Commission, the updated report states, “Despite lower absolute levels of HDI ...

GSDP rate of growth in 2012-13 at current prices By Rajiv Shah In a major revelation, Gujarat’s rate of growth for the financial year 2012-13 was not only below the national average, but less than all major Indian states which have cared to make public gross state domestic product (GSDP) figures for that year. Latest GSDP figures, revealed by Gujarat’s finance minister Nitin Patel while presenting the interim budget for 2014-15, suggest that the state’s growth rate at current prices (i.e. without deducting inflation) in 2012-13 was just 9.52 per cent (rising from Rs 6,11,767 crore in 2011-12 to Rs 6,70,016 crore in 2012-13). This is against the national average (at current prices) of 13.26 per cent.

By A Representative Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi may be continuing with his Chai pe charcha talk show through video conferencing across the country ahead of the Lok Sabha elections in order to capitalize his “image” as a tea seller during his early days. But, if a Right to Information (RTI) application reply is any indication, the Gujarat government has no specific plans for the petty entrepreneurs who, for instance, may be seeking to eke a living out of their roadside “enterprise” of selling tea, as tea vendors.

By A Representative  A top US-based consultant which, many say, carried out Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi’s public relations (PR) job, especially in western countries, has praised the UPA government, fighting a losing battle against the NDA in the Lok Sabha elections. Eulogising the UPA’s economic performance, APCO Worldwide has said in a recent post on its website , “After a series of significant policy changes starting in 1991, India today is a trillion-dollar market with an enviable rate of GDP growth.” It has added, “Today, India plays an increasingly important role in global geopolitics — not only as the world's largest democracy, but also as an economic powerhouse that is coming into its own.”

An agariya in the Little Rann of Kutch By A Representative The agariyas or salt-pan workers of Gujarat, who produce salt in the Little Rann of Kutch, face a dangerous predicament, hitting their livelihood. As on April 1, 2014, the Indian Railways is all set to close down the facility provided to more than 15,000 small salt producers to transport salt to the rest of India. Despite representations to the railway minister, Congress members of Parliament Madhusudan Mistry and Somabhai Patel, and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, the Indian Railways has declared that the Kuda public siding in Surendranagar, which provides the facility thrice a month to transport salt, will be “closed” with effect from April 1, 2014 and “no further notice will be given for closure.”

It is a matter of general knowledge that five years ago the Tata  Motors was provided huge subsidies to shift its Nano plant from West Bengal to Gujarat, following a meeting between Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi and top tycoon Ratan Tata. Ever since then, he has been hardselling Gujarat as the topmost investment destination for India. However, for long the Gujarat government kept a document which allowed the subsidy allowed subsidies a well-guarded secret. Prominent environmentalist Rohit Prajapati has now put the document in public domain: Sanction of Loan to M/S Tata Motors Ltd. for Nano Car Project Government of Gujarat, Industries and Mines Department Resolution No. TMI./10/2008/51/1 Sachivalaya, Gandhinagar Date:- 1/1/2009 Preamble: For more than three decades, Gujarat is the preferred destination for investment in almost all industrial sectors, barring a few. As a result of the proactive role of the state government to attract investments, numbers of entrepreneurs / in...

Senior environmentalist Rohit Prajapati of the Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti has has sought the reply of prime ministerial aspirant Narendra Modi on 16 issues related with issues bogging Gujarat’s environmental hotspots. He faxed his letter to the Gujarat chief minister’s office on March 20, 2014. Excerpts: The so-called success story of the two-digit growth and tall claims of capital investment in Gujarat has masked the several digit realities of loss of livelihood, land acquisition, displacement, irreversible damage to environment and permanent loss of natural resources, which are treated as free goods in this development model. The investment figure, without the figures for displacement, destruction and depletion of natural resources and the employment figure without loss of livelihood do not make sense. No wise person would talk about income without talking about the cost of acquiring that income or wealth. My questions relate to the ‘development model’ celebrated and propagated by y...

Legal structure and security of property: State rankings By A Representative In a surprise observation, top pro-Narendra Modi economists Bibek Debroy and Laveesh Bhandari have criticized Gujarat -- which they say on “many parameters is a well-governed state” – for experiencing “a steep fall” in its score of “legal structure and security of property rights”. They find, Gujarat’s score on a scale of 0 to 1 for this has been constantly going from 0.54 in 2009 and 0.52 in 2011 to “just 0.39”, pushing its ranking from No 4 to No 9. The main parameters taken into account while analyzing “legal structure and security of property” include “the efficiency of the government in protecting human life and property”. 

By A Representative Slain MP Ehsan Jafri’s widow Zakia Ahsan Jafri has filed criminal revision application before the Gujarat High Court challenging the order of the metropolitan magistrate rejecting her protest petition seeking top “arraign” BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi and 59 others on charges of “criminal conspiracy, abetment to commit mass murder, arson and rape and also tamper with evidence and destroy valuable records of the Gujarat home department.” She filed the revision appeal on March 15, 2014, which is expected to come up for hearing on March 20, 2014.

By A Representative In a series of tweets from its Twitter account, the official WikiLeaks has said that Julian Assange, Australian publisher and journalist, who is editor-in-chief and founder of WikiLeaks, never submitted that Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi was incorruptible. Releasing an explosive piece of information by digging out the tweets, a Gujarat-based website run by a prominent anti-Modi advocate, Mukul Sinha, has said that with these tweets, Modi’s lie that the US called him an incorruptible politician stands “completely exposed.”

By A Representative In a new analysis, the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), the country’s powerful independent statistical organization, has sought to debunk the claim that Gujaratis and Bengalis are among the most mobile people of India. In its latest analysis, carried out by CMIE expert Mahesh Vyas, it has said, “Air passengers from West Bengal were 118 thousand per million population and those from Gujarat were 85,000 per million population. In comparison, Maharashtra had a traffic of 304 thousand per million population and Kerala was 285 thousand.”

By Fr Cedric Prakash* It has been a long and eventful day for me, culminating in a train journey. Although I still have a fever and feel rather exhausted, here I am putting this down as I promised a lady on the train that I would write and tell the world of her magnanimous gesture... A rally had been organised by SOUL (Save Our Land) at the Azad Maidan in Mumbai to protest the Church land acquisitions. I was one of the speakers invited to address the people gathered. The crowds were much more than the organisers had expected.

By Rajiv Shah In what many may consider as another “expose” of the Gujarat development model sought to be sold across the country during the Lok Sabha elections, the latest National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) report, “Level and Pattern of Consumer Expenditure, 2011-12”, released in February 2014, has revealed that the average spending capacity of Gujarat households, as reflected in monthly per capita expenditure (MPCE), is lower than 11 out of 20 major states in the rural areas and nine out of 20 major states in the urban areas. 

By A Representative  An ILO-sponsored study has suggested that Gujarat development has failed to end gender discrimination in the job market. In fact, Gujarat is one of the four Indian states, whose labour rate participation rate has registered a decline.

By A Representative In a fresh move, Gujarat’s top environmental body Paryavaran Mitra has wondered why is the Gujarat government reluctant to send more than 1,700 projects to the Government of India for environmental clearance pending delay in the formation of the State-level Expert Appraisal Committee (SEAC) of the Environment Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA). Saying that the delay has stalled implementation of these projects, most of which are of small scale nature, Paryavaran Mitra said, the law is very clear that in case SEAC is not formed, projects should be sent to the Centre.

By A Representative A recent meeting at the prestigious London School of Economics (LSE) is learnt to have reached the conclusion that India, facing general elections, is “on the brink of a dangerous crossroads”, because, it felt, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, as representative of the “rightwing BJP” and allegedly “implicated” in the “massacres of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002”, has fair chances of winning.” The meeting was organised by UK’s Freedom without Fear Platform in collaboration with the LSE Gender Institute and South Asia Solidarity Group.

By A Representative  Industrial investment trend suggests that much of the propaganda around Gujarat development has little or no basis. While there has been sharp rise in industrial investment intentions, the actual implementation has taken a backseat, and so has employment generation.  At a time when there is an acceleration in propaganda across India about Gujarat’s developmental model, which has allegedly helped attract highest-ever investment in the state compared to any other of state of India, resulting in the claim of a sharp rise in employment, the Gujarat government’s own industries department data suggest that there is a huge gap between intended industrial investments and projected job creation and actual investment commissioned resulting in real employment. Worse, the data suggest that there has been a sharp deceleration in the rate of job creation as also actual implementation of projects in Gujarat. A major reason for this could be that, according to experts, Gu...

By A Representative   Senior United Nations (UN) official Heiner Bielefeldt has sharply criticized the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act, which says that “a person who wants to convert to another religion must first get permission from the district magistrate to do so”. Calling this as an “unreasonable restriction not only on people’s right to convert to another religion, but also their right to propagate their own religion”, Bielefeldt, who is UN special rapporteur on religious freedom, and examined similar anti-conversion laws across different states, has particularly taken strong exception to the law in Gujarat.

By A Representative The world’s powerful business journal, Forbes Asia, in its latest issue (March 24, 2014), in an article titled “Doing Big Business in Modi's Gujarat”, has accused the Narendra Modi government of handing over Gujarat’s Adani Group cheap land, on which it “has built his cash cow – the country’s private port by volume, as well as a 4,620-megawatt coal-fired power plant.” Adani has, says the journal, “over the years, leased 7,350 hectares–much of which he got from 2005 onward from the government in Mundra in the Gulf of Kutch in Gujarat.”

During 2012 accident at Alang By A Representative Top environmental group Toxics Watch Alliance (TWA) has quoted "authentic sources" to say that as many as five workers, all of them migrants, were crushed to death at the Alang Shipbreaking Yard, along the beach of Bhavnagar in Gujarat, as a result of an accident at Plot No 20.This is against the official sources who said only two have died in an accident on march 11 late evening. TWA’s Gopal Krishna has reported, “I spoke to the officials in Gujarat and have reliably learnt that a total of 5 workers suffered during the fatal  accident after an iron plate fell on them.” He adds, “Three other workers are also in a critical condition and have been admitted in a private hospital in Bhavnagar by the plot holder.”

By A Representative A recent letter by Gujarat’s environmental organization, Paryavaran Mitra, to Dr V Rajagopal, secretary, ministry of environment and forests, Government of India, has revealed roughshod manner in which Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) reports for different developmental projects are prepared in India. Referring to the EIA report proposed by the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) for the Vadodara-Mumbai Expressway Project, the top environmental group has said, “The consultants for the NHAI have done a simple copy paste job", and “taken shortcut by copying and pasting the project descriptions from similar project of Ganga Expressway.”

By A Representative Trustees of the Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP), fighting a crucial battle against Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi’s alleged complicity in 2002 riots, have condemned what they call “malicious lies" being spread by the Gujarat government in "misleading" courts of law about the CJP ‘cheating’ victims of the riots. The statement is in response to the Gujarat police, which told the Bombay high court, opposing the petition filed by social activist Teesta Setalvad and her husband seeking quashing of an FIR against them for alleged misappropriation of funds, that the duo had indeed cheated victims of 2002 Godhra riots and "embezzled funds" in their name. Prosecution probing "embezzlement" Ajay Choksi simultaneously told the sessions court in Ahmedabad that Setalvad should be "quizzed" in custody to set an example (click HERE ).