Do you have girl friend? When will you get married?: Gujarat police to Hardik Patel during investigation

By Our Representative
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.
Giving details of the police interrogation, a local Gujarati TV channel has reported, the policeman questioning Patel, who happens to be the topmost leader of the Patidar Anamat Andolan (PAA), told him, “Details of your horoscope published in a daily suggest your stars favour you, and you would become the chief minister of Gujarat one day.”
The policeman, belonging to the Gujarat crime branch, advised Patel, “I recommend you to leave the movement for Patidar reservation movement and join a political party in order to pursue your political career.” He even pleaded, “If you become chief minister, do not take a revenge against me, you may like to keep me for your security.”
The channel reports, this came to light in Patel’s affidavit prepared by his lawyer Jashwant Vala, who said, the details of his questioning suggest what type of “stupid questions” were asked to the pro-quota leader.
The policeman asked Patel whether the latter thought he was in for trouble for his utterances (allegedly advising Patel youth to kill a couple of cops), even as telling the leader that he seemed to be “innocent” and an “innocent person should not be punished.”
The policeman also asked him whom did he suspect had lathicharged the youths soon after the five lakh strong pro-quota Patidar rally ended, and that how could the chief minister order the lathicharge as she belongs to the same community as Patel, the youth leader replied, “Maybe it was chief minister. It is not clear who in the government gave the order.”
On a supplementary question whom did he suspend was behind the lathicharge, Patel replied, “May be it was Amit Shah.” Shah, a well-known Narendra Modi protégé, is the BJP president.
In yet another question, Patel was asked which party – BJP or Congress – helped him, Patel replied, “No political leader supported me, though I know most of the leaders, and I talk to them on phone.” Among the leaders he named included Uddhav Thakre, Nitin Gadkari, Keshubhai Patel and Nitish Kumar.
There also a question whether it was true he was offered Rs 1,000 or 1.200 crore for taking back his agitation, to which Patel replied, “We do not have an office, but BJP leaders would come to me with bags full of money.”
Patel has moved the Gujarat High Court seeking bail. His bail application came after the Surat district and sessions court rejected his bail plea on December 10. In the bail application submitted before the Surat court, Hardik claimed that he has been booked under false charges by police, as mere spoken words do not amount to sedition.
Meanwhile, the Patidar leader has admitted before the Supreme Court that some of the controversial statements he made during the quota stir were “stupid” but he never intended to overthrow the elected government of Gujarat through violence. He approached the Apex Court through senior advocate Kapil Sibal of Congress, as the Gujarat High Court has refused to stay sedition charges against him.

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World Bank clarifies: Its 26th rank to India not for universal access to power but for ease of doing business

By Our Representative
In a major embarrassment to the Government of India, the World Bank has reportedly clarified that it has not ranked India 26th out of 130 countries for providing power to its population. The top international banker’s clarification comes following Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal’s claim that India has “improved to 26 position from 99” in access to electricity in just one year.

"Misleading" satellite images being shared on Balakot surgical strike on Jaish camp

By Dr Vinay Kate*
With every passing day more questions are being raised about the surgical strike India did in Balakot as a response to Pulwama attacks. So far the Indian media has claimed mass casulaty of 300+ terrorists of Jaish-e-Mohammad in this surgical strike, but there is hardly any report from foreign media about the same.

Extreme repression, corporate loot, cultural genocide "characterise" India's tribal belt

Counterview Desk
As Lok Sabha polls approach, there is considerable ferment in one section of the population -- India's Adivasis, forming about 8.6 per cent of India's population. Things became particularly critical following the February 14, 2019 Supreme Court order, allegedly seeking to evict lakhs of tribals from their forest lands.

Industry in India "barely growing", export growth 0%, whither moral anchors?

Counterview Desk
In a sharp critique of the Modi government, the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A), one of world renowned economist Prof Kaushik Basu, who is Professor of Economics and Carl Marks Professor of International Studies at Cornell University, has told students at the IIM-A’s 54th Annual Convocation on March 16, 2019 that they have a “special responsibility” on their shoulders, “the responsibility to reject narrow sectarianism, uphold scientific thinking, openness to new ideas, and freedom of speech.”

Gujarat model? Industrial effluents "invade" borewells, discharge coloured water in farms

By Rajiv Shah
In a major embarrassment for Gujarat model, of the 21 samples taken by officials of the state government's environmental watchdog Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) in two villages of Vadodara district and analyzed by its laboratory in Gandhinagar, the state capital, to find out pollution level in groundwater, 16 were assessed as highly contaminated – these were, in fact, found to be discharging reddish, brownish, reddish, or yellowish water.

Refugees as criminals? US govt report blames Amit Shah for calling Bangladeshis termites

Counterview Desk
The chapter “Freedom of Movement” of the US State Department’s “India 2018 Human Rights Report”, released recently, has criticized BJP chief Amit Shah for terming alleged Bangladeshis who may be in Assam as “termites”, because their names were struck down from the list of National Register of Citizens, under preparation in the state.
Pointing out that four million residents were excluded from Assam’s final draft list, leading to “uncertainty over the status of these individuals, many of whose families had lived in the state for several generations”, the report regrets, the Indian law does not even contain the term “refugee,” treating refugees like Rohingiyas as “any other foreigners.”
“Undocumented physical presence in the country is a criminal offense. Persons without documentation were vulnerable to forced returns and abuse”, the report says.
Text of the Freedom of Movement chapter: The law provides for freedom of internal movement, foreign travel, emigration, a…

Mental health: India's 95% patients "deprived" of medical care, treatment gap 70%

By Moin Qazi*
Among the many challenges India faces, the most underappreciated is the ongoing mental health crisis. Mental illness is actually India’s ticking bomb. An estimated 56 million Indians suffer from depression, and 38 million from anxiety disorders. For those who suffer from mental illness, life can seem like a terrible prison from which there is no hope of escape; they are left forlorn and abandoned, stigmatized, shunned and misunderstood.

Congress would win just 9 of 26 Lok Sabha seats: Gujarat Assembly segment-wise analysis

By Rajiv Shah
Even as the Congress plans its first working committee meet in Gujarat on February 28 after an almost 58 year gap, there is reason to wonder what is in store for India’s grand old party in a state which has been long been a BJP bastion – in fact ever since mid-1990s. Ahead of the then assembly polls in late 2012, talking with me, a senior Gujarat Congress leader, currently Rajya Sabha MP, frankly said he saw no reason why Congress would win.

"Pro-corporate" Supreme Court order on FRA would further marginalize Adivasis

By VS Roy David, JP Raju*
For millions of Adivasis and other traditional forest dwellers February 13, 2019 will go down in history as the day of apocalypse. This is like the proverbial Black Friday where millions of most marginalized people of India were ordered by malicious anti-people draconian Supreme Court order depriving them the life and livelihood by evicting them from their habitats.

Financial inclusion? Not micro-loans; India's poor "need" investment in health, education

By Moin Qazi*
India has grown into a global powerhouse. Its economy is soaring but the picture on the ground is still quite arid. The green shoots that you see are only a patch of its landscape. Most Indians are hapless victims of inequity. India is one country where intense poverty abounds in the shadow of immense wealth.

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