India's improved real estate transparency? Top Chicago firm's ranking based on land law Modi wants to scuttle

By Our Representative
A top Chicago-based real top consultancy firm has praised the Narendra Modi government for improving India’s Global Real Estate Transparency Index (GRETI) ranking to the 36th position this year from the 40th in 2014 on the basis of the “proactive measures” to increase transparency in the real estate sector through an Act, which it wants to scuttle.
The 36th position is for Tier 1 cities, with a population of 100,000 or more. It is 39th position for Tier 2 cities (with a population between 50,000 and 99,000), and 52nd for Tier 3 cities (with a population between 20,000 and 49,999. While for Tier 2 cities there is an improvement by three ranks, for Tier 3 cities, the ranking has gone down by two points (see chart).
In India, the Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) report says, “Land records have started to be digitised and made available via an online database, while the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act has simplified procedures for acquiring land and determining fair compensation to sellers.”
Though passed by the last UPA government in 2013, ironically, the firm says, the law was enacted in 2014, but refuses to recall Modi efforts to scuttle it through repeated ordinances in 2014-15. The Act, as passed in 2013, has been under unprecedented criticism from the corporate sector and its supporters, who believe call it the main hurdle in “developing” industrial projects because of its clauses of consent and social impact assessment.

Worse, refusing to recall the year when the Act was passed, Anuj Puri, chairman and country head, JLL India, says, India “moved up by four ranks thanks, in large part, to the Modi government’s aim to stimulate growth and reduce red tape”, adding, this was aided by “improved market fundamentals” and “policy reforms like Land Acquisition Act.”
Titled “Global Real Estate Transparency Index, 2016: Taking Real Estate Transparency to the Next Level”, the report says, India remains in the “semi-transparent category”, adding, “The Anglosphere continues to dominate the ‘Highly Transparent’ group – the United Kingdom (1st), Australia (2nd), Canada (3rd) and the United States (4th) hold the top positions.”
Pointing out that top 10 ‘Highly Transparent’ countries account for 75% of global real estate investment, the report basis its analysis on factors such as high-quality accessible market data, fair transaction processes, strong corporate governance, stringent regulatory enforcement, clarity of property ownership, high ethical standards, green building regulations, and so on.
In all covering 109 countries worldwide, while the survey does mention the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 as a measure to help improve real estate transparency, it insists, India “should provide more buyer protection and an equitable platform to resolve disputes.”
The Real Estate Act 2016, it is well known, makes it mandatory for project developers to register with the Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA). Based on Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) Bill 2013, it obliges the builder to quote prices based on carpet and not super built-up area.
The report wants India to further improve its “regulatory reforms” essential for further progress, saying “Our survey reveals that among the ‘semi-transparent’ group (in which India is among the very top) there is a notable disconnect between the existence of regulations and actual enforcement – particularly in land use planning, contracts and building codes.”

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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.

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.

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.

Savarkar in Ahmedabad "declared support" to two-nation theory in 1937, followed by Jinnah three years later

By Our Representative
One of the top freedom fighters whom BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi revere the most, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, was also a great supporter of the two nation theory for India, one for Hindus another for Muslims, claims a new expose on the man who is also known to be the original proponent of the concept of Hindutva.

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.

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