Jaitley's Melbourne visit: Students, environmentalists protest against Adanis' Australian coalmining project

By A Representative
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who addressed students at the Melbourne University on April 2, was preceded by students' and faculty members' protest against the controversial coalmining project, taken up by one of the most influential business houses in India, Adanis, in Australia's Queensland state.
The snap protest was organised by the Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC) outside a public lecture by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley at the Melbourne University. AYCC has a huge following in the university.
Their placards read "No future funds for coal" and "Coral not coal". The project is being implemented in Queensland's Carmichael region. The high-quality coal is proposed to be exported to other countries, particularly via the North Galilee Basin rail project.
Environmentalists, particularly well-known environmental NGO Greenpeace and other groups, have accused the Australian authorities for having cleared the project, pointing towards how it would affect the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.
The aborigines, who have gone to the Federal Court against the 16 billion dollar project, have joined in to say that the project is being implemented without taking into account their land rights.
Unmindful of the protests, Jaitley told Australian students how the Modi government cared for the marginalized population of India. He said, the Government of India planned to continue with the "reservations in jobs and educational institutions for Scheduled Casts (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) for a long time", reports South Asia Times.
Jaitley's address at the Melbourne University and an interaction following that was organized by the Australia India Institute (AII) and the Indian Consulate, Melbourne, and conducted by AII Director Craig Jeffery.

Jaitley admitted that the ST were still the most deprived sections of Indian society for whom the quality of life had not improved, even as pointing towards how the Indian economy was on the upswing. He said, "The Indian market-oriented development model has to have a social aspect", so that a large population, suffering from inequality, does not suffer.
Jaitley also admitted that agriculturists, except for the few rich ones, were "in a bad shape" and his government was "trying" to empower the rural people with different schemes.
There a flutter when a question was asked to him as to what could Australia do in the ‘Make in India’ scheme, when it itself had little manufacturing.
Jaitley replied, India was looking at Australian resources, food processing and infrastructure projects like highways, railway stations and airports. "Lots of investment funds in Australia are looking for investing and there has been some positive response,” he said, but did not elaborate.
Students wanted to know about the atmosphere of unrest among Indian universities, especially the University of Hyderabad and the Jawaharlal Nehru. Jaitley defended the Modi government’s stand, but bypassed any direct answer, saying India was "the worst affected by terrorism".
Referring to the Mumbai blasts and the terrorist attack on Parliament he said there was a need to defend "sovereignty of India", and under special circumstances there were bound to "exceptions to freedom of speech."

Comments

A comrade in culture and controversy: Yao Wenyuan’s revolutionary legacy

By Harsh Thakor* This year marks two important anniversaries in Chinese revolutionary history—the 20th death anniversary of Yao Wenyuan, and the 50th anniversary of his seminal essay "On the Social Basis of the Lin Biao Anti-Party Clique". These milestones invite reflection on the man whose pen ignited the first sparks of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and whose sharp ideological interventions left an indelible imprint on the political and cultural landscape of socialist China.

The Vande Mataram debate and the politics of manufactured controversy

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* The recent Vande Mataram debate in Parliament was never meant to foster genuine dialogue. Each political party spoke past the other, addressing its own constituency, ensuring that clips went viral rather than contributing to meaningful deliberation. The objective was clear: to construct a Hindutva narrative ahead of the Bengal elections. Predictably, the Lok Sabha will likely expunge the opposition’s “controversial” remarks while retaining blatant inaccuracies voiced by ministers and ruling-party members. The BJP has mastered the art of inserting distortions into parliamentary records to provide them with a veneer of historical legitimacy.

Ahmedabad's Sabarmati riverfront under scrutiny after Subhash Bridge damage

By Rosamma Thomas* Large cracks have appeared on Subhash Bridge across the Sabarmati in Ahmedabad, close to the Gandhi Ashram . Built in 1973, this bridge, named after Subhash Chandra Bose , connects the eastern and western parts of the city and is located close to major commercial areas. The four-lane bridge has sidewalks for pedestrians, and is vital for access to Ashram Road , Ellis Bridge , Gandhinagar and the Sabarmati Railway Station .

Urgent need to study cause of large number of natural deaths in Gulf countries

By Venkatesh Nayak* According to data tabled in Parliament in April 2018, there are 87.76 lakh (8.77 million) Indians in six Gulf countries, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While replying to an Unstarred Question (#6091) raised in the Lok Sabha, the Union Minister of State for External Affairs said, during the first half of this financial year alone (between April-September 2018), blue-collared Indian workers in these countries had remitted USD 33.47 Billion back home. Not much is known about the human cost of such earnings which swell up the country’s forex reserves quietly. My recent RTI intervention and research of proceedings in Parliament has revealed that between 2012 and mid-2018 more than 24,570 Indian Workers died in these Gulf countries. This works out to an average of more than 10 deaths per day. For every US$ 1 Billion they remitted to India during the same period there were at least 117 deaths of Indian Workers in Gulf ...

Proposals for Babri Masjid, Ram Temple spark fears of polarisation before West Bengal polls

By A Representative A political debate has emerged in West Bengal following recent announcements about plans for new religious structures in Murshidabad district, including a proposed mosque to be named Babri Masjid and a separate announcement by a BJP leader regarding the construction of a Ram temple in another location within Behrampur.

No action yet on complaint over assault on lawyer during Tirunelveli public hearing

By A Representative A day after a detailed complaint was filed seeking disciplinary action against ten lawyers in Tirunelveli for allegedly assaulting human rights lawyer Dr. V. Suresh, no action has yet been taken by the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, according to the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL).

Myanmar prepares for elections widely seen as a junta-controlled exercise

By Nava Thakuria* Trouble-torn Myanmar (also known as Burma or Brahmadesh) is preparing for three-phase national elections starting on 28 December 2025, with results expected in January 2026. Several political parties—primarily proxies of the Burmese military junta—are participating, while Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) remains banned. Observers expect a one-sided contest where junta-backed candidates are likely to dominate.

From crime to verdict: The 27-year journey that 'rewarded' the destroyers of Babri Masjid

By Shamsul Islam Thirty-three years ago, on December 6, 1992, a 16th-century mosque was reduced to rubble by a frenzied mob orchestrated by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its political fronts. The demolition was not a spontaneous outburst of Hindu sentiment; it was the meticulously planned culmination of a hate campaign that branded Indian Muslims as “Babur-ki-aulad” and the Babri Masjid as a symbol of historical humiliation.

Global LNG boom 'threatens climate goals': Banks urged to end financing

By A Representative The world is on the brink of an unprecedented surge in Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) development, with 279 new projects planned globally, threatening to derail international climate goals and causing severe local impacts. This stark warning comes from a coalition of organizations—including Reclaim Finance, Rainforest Action Network, BankTrack, and others—that today launched the " Exit LNG " website, a new mapping project exposing the extent of the expansion, the companies involved, and their bank financiers.

Search This Blog