Notorious  for communal violence, Kandhamal district of Odisha once again saw tension following saffron outfits’ alleged threat to Christians not to celebrate Christmas. Ajaya Kumar Singh, a well-known social activist working in the area,  reports  that roads to several villages were “blocked” by felling trees and putting huge rocks so that the police force could not reach the place where they were “rampaging.”

Top 20 countries which will grow fastest till 2024 Basing on analysis of decade-long economic growth data and policies between 2004 and 2014 – which Manmohan Singh was India’s Prime Minister – the Centre for International Development (CID) at Harvard University has predicted that India has the “potential to be the fastest growing economy over the coming decade.”

Subarnarekha river, "affected" by uranium waste As India seeks to go nuclear signing one pact after another with other countries, a US-based non-profit organization, Centre for Public Integrity (CPI), has come down heavily on the state-owned Uranium Corporation of India Ltd’s (UCIL’s) operations in Jadugoda, Jharkhand, for failing to protect “nuclear workers, village residents, and children living near mines and factories” from “persistent exposure to unsafe radiation.”

Fishing community "affected" by World Bank's Gujarat power project By Our Representative The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), a powerful group of cross-border journalists, has appreciated that, after years of delay, the World Bank has initiated “action to address sweeping failures in its oversight of development projects that force people from their land or harm their livelihoods.”

Balwant Singh Gujarat’s chief information commissioner Balwant Singh, in a ruling, which is unlikely to be taken kindly by RTI activists, has said that senior IAS official Sanjay Prasad’s two-year-old report on the death of three Dalit youths in police firing of September 2012, may be public, as it relates to a “human rights violation”, but under certain condition.

Falciani Yet another instance has come to light suggesting the Government of India isn’t keen on sharing information on black money. The Ministry of Finance has lately refused to part with official information on action taken following former Geneva-based HSBC Bank employee and whistleblower Herve Falciani’s leaked information on account holders who had stashed away black money in the bank.

The wall around the "proposed" N-site A “secret” acquisition of of nearly 4,290 acres of land adjacent to Varavu Kaval and Khudapura villages in the district of Chitradurga, Karnataka, which place seven months after India’s Parliament ratified the US-Indian nuclear cooperation by Parliament May 2009, has gone internationally controversial six years after the process began.

  A civil society investigation has blamed organizers of the eye surgery camp of criminal negligence, leading to the gruesome incident leading last month to the loss of eyesight of 66 patients belonging to Barwani and Dhar districts of Madhya Pradesh. The investigation team consisted of Rakesh Chandore, Dhara, Amulya Nidhi, and SR Azad of the Jan Swasthya Abhiyan; and Medha Patkar, Devisingh Tomar, Bhagirath Dhangar, and Rahul Yadav of the Narmada Bachao Andolan.

Bhagwat Counterview Desk In a surprise move, a senior official of People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) has quoted RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat to justify his arguments in working out a new education policy, for which Union human resources minister Smriti Irani had sought comments by December 15.

The Gujarat police is learnt to be asking strange questions to young pro-quota Patidar leader Hardik Patel, currently in Surat’s Lajpore jail of Gujarat on charges of sedition. Details of the questions asked during the police interrogation suggest, among the questions he was asked included whether he had a girl friend, and when would he get married.

 India’s civil society organizations have strongly objected to the new Foreign Contribution Regulation (FRC)  Rules  notified by the Ministry of Home Affairs, which require the NGOs to give an "affirmation" that they are not used the foreign contribution for activities that are likely to “prejudicially affect” the sovereignty and integrity of the country, the security, strategic, scientific and economic interests of the state and the public interest.

  A new survey released by well-known rating agency Standard & Poor (S&P) has found that just 24 per cent of the adult Indians are financially literate, which is worse than not just the “competing” BRICS economies but two of its important neighbours Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Pakistan’s 26 per cent and Sri Lanka’s 35 per cent adults are financially literate, it says. Bangladesh's financial literacy rate is 19 per cent.

  The latest Human Development Report 2015 suggests that though India’s Human Development Index (HDI) for 2014 is 0.609 on a scale of 1000, below the average of 0.630 for countries in the medium human development group,  above the average of 0.607 for countries in South Asia, its international ranking of 130th of 188 countries would have been much better if the country had fought socio-economic inequalities.

The Union ministry of external affairs (MEA) has rejected the release, under the right to information (RTI) Act, to records relating to the issue of the fake passport of top underworld don Chhota Rajan, whose capture in Indonesia last month was sought to be projected as a major breakthrough by the Government of India.

  Even as ranking India 80th in Global Hunger Index (GHI) among 104 developing countries, a new study, carried out by a group of research organizations led by the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) says that the country’s has been able to successfully fight against child undernutrition in India after 2005.

A new “worry” appears to have gripped Gujarat government: Claiming to be No 1 in solar power, it is not sure how the Government of India would fulfill the solar power dream, revising the target upwards from 20 GW to 100 GW, especially when the rooftop segment, forming 40 per cent of the target, as it woefully lacks necessary manpower.

Does the passport office in Gujarat, widely proclaimed as a “model” state, not know that orphan/abandoned children are exempted from the mandatory requirement of submission of a birth certificate along with passport application form? It would seem so if what happened on Friday is any indication.

  The Supreme Court judgment of December 10, which upholds amendment to Haryana's Panchayati Raj law seeking to disqualify those contesting panchayat polls for not possessing minimum educational qualifications, non-payment of electricity bills or dues to cooperative banks, and not having a toilet in their homes is being widely interpreted as anti-women, anti-Dalit, and against international laws, to which India is a signatory.

  An international advocacy group  report , prepared even as the Paris talks on climate change are on, has accused India that Government of India and India’s coal companies operating in the private sector of causing “major, countervailing detrimental effects on communities which had previously sustained themselves with farming, fishing, hunting and other activities.”

A recent World Bank  analysis , even while predicting that India’s growth rate would be around 7.5 per cent by the end of the present financial year ending March 2016, believes that it is largely “oil-fueled.” Carried out by  Frederico Gil Sander , senior economist, World Bank, it says, “The drastic decline in global crude oil prices since June 2014 clearly played an important role”.

Senior Congress leader from Gujarat Madhusudan Mistry, known for taking independent political stances which may not necessarily to be the liking of a section of the party leaders, has strongly insisted the onus is on the Congress leadership to “change” its present electoral/mobilisation strategy, especially in urban areas, if it wants to “win the assembly election due in 2017.”

  In a fresh evidence, Gujarat’s public healthcare has taken a beating over the last10 years, with rural areas witnessing one of the sharpest 7.9 per cent fall in the provision of government health services in India, Only two states witnessed a higher fall than Gujarat in rural public healthcare services -- Karnataka (13.2 per cent) and Maharashtra (9.5).

  At a time when the Government of India is keen to promote startup enterprises, a spot survey in a Niti Aayog report has found that just about 17 per cent of the urban youth, belonging to the lower strata, are interested self-employment or entrepreneurship, and majority would prefer, instead, permanent, preferably government job.

Kumari Selja "praising" Dwarka arrangement In what may be interpreted by a section of Dalit activists as a controversial statement, Rajya Sabha MP Parimal Nathwani (independent), who happens to be vice-chairman of the Dwarkadheesh temple trust in Dwarka, has said that there is “nothing humiliating” if a teerth panda (senior priest) asks for the caste of “a devotee to find out his/her gotra (family root).”

  A recent report, prepared by top international consultants, KPMG, has said that an alarming 72 per cent of company leaders in India, up from 49 per cent a year ago, have said that they have faced “some sort of a cyber attack over the past year, indicating an increase in the volume of attacks.”

  A top economist close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Bibek Debroy, believes that, whenever the Government of India refers issues needing analysis of the Planning Commission successor Niti Ayog, they would not be made public. One of the three members so far appointed, Debroy said the think-tank has already begun to get such “issues”, which are referred to it by the government.

  Ranking No 131 of 167 countries in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Development Index or IDI, India has slipped by seven points from No 125 in 2010, says a just-released  report , “Measuring the Information Society Report 2015”, prepared by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), part of the United Nations system, headquartered in Geneva.