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

By Our 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."

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Green revolution "not sustainable", Bt cotton a failure in India: MS Swaminathan

Counterview Desk
In a recent paper in the journal “Current Science”, distinguished scientist PC Kesaven and his colleague MS Swaminathan, widely regarded as the father of the Green Revolution, have argued that Bt insecticidal cotton, widely regarded as the continuation of the Green Revolution, has been a failure in India and has not provided livelihood security for mainly resource-poor, small and marginal farmers.
Sharply taking on Green Revolution, the authors say, it has not been sustainable largely because of adverse environmental and social impacts, insisting on the need to move away from the simplistic output-yield paradigm that dominates much thinking. Seeking to address the concerns about local food security and sovereignty as well as on-farm and off-farm social and ecological issues associated with the Green Revolution, they argue in favour of what they call sustainable ‘Evergreen Revolution’, based on a ‘systems approach’ and ‘ecoagriculture’.
Pointing out that Evergreen Revol…

Rejoinder: Inescapable to have Central Water Commission as strong technical body in India

By BN Navalawala*
This is with reference to Counterview Blog (December 5, 2018), "Modi govt 'shelves' water reforms report, shows 'no interest' in its recommendations", below mentioned are my comments/observations thereon:
A committee was constituted under the Chairmanship of Dr. Mihir Shah, Former Member, Planning Commission, for restructuring of Central Water Commission (CWC) and Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) for optimal development of water resources in the country in the backdrop of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM).

Some Hindu bodies in US defending BJP-RSS' divisive, violent activities: Agnivesh

Counterview Desk Last week, Washington DC saw speakers at a religious freedom roundtable, chaired by the US Ambassador for Religious Freedom, Sam Brownback, express concern over "eroding" space for religious freedom in India. Dr Mike Ghouse, executive director, of the Center for Pluralism in Washington DC, referring to the roundtable, said in an email alert that Indian-Americans have "a moral duty to prevent India from being labeled as a Country of Particular Concern by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF)".

Preventing childhood deaths: India performs worse than Bangladesh, "equals" Pakistan

By Rajiv Shah
A just-released study, “The Pneumonia and Diarrhea Progress Report 2018”, prepared by the International Vaccine Access Centre (IVAC) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, has identified India among 15 other countries which are still far off the mark in achieving the targets of the Global Action Plan for the Prevention of Pneumonia and Diarrhea (GAPPD).

Karnataka: NGO Akshay Patra "not sensitive" to nutrition demands of school children

Counterview Desk
Well-known civil rights organizations, Right to Food Campaign and Jan Swasthya Abhiyan, have sent a letter to the Union minister of human resource development, the Chief Minister of Karnataka, other concerned ministers and officials of the state expressing concerns regarding the mid-day meal (MDM) to school children, insisting, all contracts to the Akshay Patra for supply of MDM should be immediately terminated.

India's rewritten textbooks talk of demerits of democracy, praise Hitler, underrate Mughals

Counterview Desk
A detailed, 3,800-word review of the books rewritten under directions of the BJP rulers across India since Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in May 2014 has suggested that one of aims of the books is to instill a sense of doubt about India’s democratic polity among the country’s young minds. Reviewed in the prestigious US journal, “The New York Review of Books”, in its latest issue (December 6, 2018) by Alex Traub, the scrutiny insists, the effort has also been to paint Indian history from the angle of “Hindu triumphalism”, even as creating “Islamophobia”.

Govt of India "tarnishing" NGO reputation, dossier leaked selectively: Amnesty

Counterview Desk
Amnesty International India has said that a deliberate attempt is being made to tarnish its reputation by leaking a dossier, supposedly made by investigating agencies, to media without giving it access to any such information. The high profile NGO’s claim follows a Times Now report about proceedings launched by investigative agencies, including Enforcement Directorate (ED) against the rights body for “violations” of rules pertaining to overseas donations.

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.

Four children die after poor UP Dalit, Muslim families forced to flee to forest area: PVCHR

Counterview Desk
Peoples’ Vigilance Committee on Human Rights (PVCHR) has said that the forest department police’s crackdown, allegedly without any prior notice, on Dalit and Muslim households in Dakhin Tola, Churk Bazaar, Sonbhadra district, Uttar Pradesh, beating up “children and old people, women, and men in an inhuman way”, has led to “forced displacement, starvation and discrimination”. This has reportedly affected about 350 people.

Vedanta is out but corporate loot continues in Odisha: Local activists tell NAPM yatra

By Our Representative
Lok Shakti Abhiyan leader Prafulla Samantara, winner of the Goldman Environmental (also known as Green Nobel) Prize in 2017, has regretted that though Sundergarh in Odisha, like other forest areas, is a fifth schedule area, where Forest Rights Act (FRA) and Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA) is applicable, but these laws are being “outrightly violated to facilitate corporate loot.”

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