Reveal concession agreement under public-private property project under GoI, rules Central RTI watchdog

By Our Representative
In an important move, the central information commissioner (CIC), the right to information (RTI) watchdog on the Government of India (GoI) and its agencies, has ordered, in a ruling, that concession agreement for a public-private partnership (PPP) project should be disclosed after “severing those portions relating to commercial confidentiality”.
While the order relates to an RTI query by senior activist Venkatesh Nayak of the Commonwealth Human Rights Organization (CHRI) seeking information from the Department of Ports, GoI, regarding Puducherry Port’s PPP project, this marks a break from the past when RTI pleas on PPP projects were set aside citing "violation" of business confidentiality.
It is not just GoI ministries and departments which would refuse information on concession agreement. The Gujarat government's industries department, too, has acted similarly saying this would "hit private interests." Several RTI pleas seeking agreement with Tatas on the prestigious Nano project have been rejected citing confidentiality "violation". The Nano agreement with the Gujarat government is said to have meant concession to the tune of Rs 20,000 crore to the Tatas.
Nayak made an application seeking information on Puducherry Port as a “test case” after he accessed a letter the CIC had sent to the now defunct Planning Commission in January 2011, which said, “every PPP proposal be made public inviting people's comments”, all PPP agreements, including on special purpose vehicle created for the purpose of implementing PPP project should be treated as “public authority under the RTI Act”; and the Ministry/public authority responsible for PPP project should be “directly responsible” for making permissible information transparent under the RTI.
The Planning Commission, in its reply said, while it would seek “legal opinion”, but it would "allow" applicants to obtain concession agreements, maintenance manuals, maintenance programmes and maintenance requirements from the concessionaire.
Based on this correspondence, Nayak decided to seek PPP agreement of the Puducherry Port under RTI. While the first appellate authority rejected his request on the ground that the concession agreement contained confidentiality clause, the CIC, two years later, in May 2014, following the hearing on RTI plea, asked the department of ports to file a status report on the PPP project.
“During the hearing it transpired that the PPP had been shelved after prolonged litigation before courts. Yet, the department of ports pleaded commercial confidentiality against disclosure”, Nayak says, adding, however, he Nayak insisted that the information be released in “public interest”.
Finally, this led the CIC, a year later, in June 2015, to issue the order directing the department of ports to “disclose the concession agreement after severing the information related to commercial confidence.”
Interestingly, despite the ruling, Nayak has not yet received a hard copy of the CIC order. While the information has been put on the website, the activist says, “Strangely, the department of ports has also not responded to me either with the information required to be disclosed or its intention to challenge the CIC's order before the courts.”
Meanwhile, Nayak says, the Niti Ayog has replaced the Planning Commission, and he is still waiting “for the PPP agreement to reach me from across the Vindhyas”. He wonders, if the current review of the infrastructure projects will also lead to “greater transparency in all PPP projects.”

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

'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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