When Medha Patkar found of Narmada dam's gates "closed" Well-known social activist  Medha Patkar  of the Narmada Bachao Andolan has told Counterview that the Gujarat government cannot close down Narmada dam’s gates, as it would risk the life and property of at least 20,000 oustees of Madhya Pradesh living in 192 villages. Text of the interview: 

Top environmentalist Rohit Prajapati has strongly protested against the Government of India considering to “dilute” the chemical oxygen demand (COD) norms from 250 milligram per litre (mg/l) to 500 mg/l for discharging industrial water into the sea, saying “this is not based on study.”

  A senior economist of influential US economics organization, HIS Global Insight, has termed the decision to demonetize Rs 500 and 1000 notes as reflecting "a vast disconnect between the ivory tower of Modi's government in Delhi run by urban middle class bureaucrats and the reality of life for the rural poor in India".

Keshavjee Mohamed M Keshavjee’s book, “Into that Heaven of Freedom”, to be launched in Ahmedabad on Saturday, captures some of the rare historical moments of how Indians were discriminated against in South Africa around the time when Mohandas  Karamchand Gandhi, as Gujarati lawyer, arrived in the country in 1893.

Gujarat CM Vijay Rupani A senior Gujarat-based environmentalist has alleged that the state government and Government of India have begun a fresh move to lift the moratorium imposed Vapi, Ankleshwar and Vatva, which were characterized in 2010 some of the most polluted industrial clusters of India.

Narmada dam, with gates atop Setting aside fears of large-scale submergence in Madhya Pradesh, top Gujarat government insiders have authoritatively stated that the crucial permission to close down the gates of the Narmada dam will surely be obtained by June 2017, ahead of the monsoon season, in order to store as much water as possible during the rainy season up to the full reservoir level, 138.64 metres.

 A recent fact-finding visit by a Left-wing delegation to the worst Naxalite-infected areas of Bastar division in Chhattisgarh has found that there has been large-scale arrest of villagers, with the law being allegedly used by the cops “as an instrument of torture rather than of justice or peace-keeping”.

  Did Prime Minister Narendra Modi go ahead with demonetisation of Rs 500 and 1000 notes without allowing any expert analysis of the impact it might have on the economy? It would seem so, if a recent paper by a research team attached with a Union finance ministry outfit is any indication.

  A high-profile report prepared to mark the World Pneumonia Day (November 12) by a well-known US-based institute has revealed that, over the last year, there is an increase, albeit marginal, in the number of under-five deaths among children because of pneumonia and diarrhea.

  Widely considered in Gujarat as Prime Minister Narendra Modi's one-time confidante, Yatin Oza, a senior Gujarat High Court advocate, has claimed, on the basis of “evidence” he has gathered, that Modi had leaked his decision to demonetize Rs 500 and 1000 notes to a top industrialist of Ahmedabad.

One of India’s topmost rating agencies, Credit Analysis and Research (CARE) Ltd, has predicted that the total cost of the Narendra Modi government move to demonetize Rs 500 and 1000 notes would go up to Rs 40,000 crore, wondering whether the pain it is causing to the common people worth it.

A high-profile civil society fact-finding team (FFT), set up by the Delhi Solidarity Group, has said in a report that more than a month after the gruesome  death of four persons  in police firing at Badkagaon, Hazaribagh, Jharkhand, villagers are under “constant trauma and fear”, with cops threatening them to “cause further killings if they do not part with their land.”

People waiting to exchange hard-earned income in Ahmedabad Motilal Oswal , one of India’s topmost financial services firms, has predicted that the economic growth of the economy is likely to slow down in the second half of 2017, and is unlikely to improve in the next one year because of demonetization of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes. In a sector update, it  says , “Overall, while economic growth in the second half of 2017 could be lower than expected, fundamentals of the economy should improve from the second half of 2018.”

In a bizarre incident in Madhya Pradesh's Nisarpur village of Kukshi block in Dhar district, Kanhaiya Prajapati, one of the thousands of poor farmers displaced by the high-profile Narmada dam in Gujarat, was “picked up” early in the morning 5:00 am last week by the local police for allegedly signing up a fake registry for “receiving” cash instead of land as part of the resettlement and rehabilitation (R&R) package of the state government.

India's top anti-dam organization, Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) has alleged that, despite continued deficit of rainfall this monsoon, the Gujarat government has been providing “huge quantities” of Narmada water, meant for irrigation, to some of the top industrial houses and the proposed Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) region.

The Chhattisgarh police's controversial move to file FIR charging Nandini Sundar, Professor of Sociology, Delhi University and Prof Archana Prasad of the Jawaharlal Nehru University, of murder of a tribal in Bastar is all set to become a major human rights concern across India.

  Amidst British Prime Minister Theresa May’s on-going India visit, British human rights organization, Anti-Slavery International (ASI), has apprehended that “the world trade deal Britain signs with India would open it up as a major market for slavery-tainted goods India.”

In a joint statement, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, two of the topmost human rights NGOs with global presence, have strongly reacted to the Government of India’s reported refusal to renew foreign funding licenses of 25 NGOs “without valid reasons.”

Top international NGO Greenpeace has said that there is a need for an urgent nation-wide, systemic solution for pollution crisis response, and the Delhi government's announcement of “emergency measures” to help citizens cope with the public health crisis of hazardous air pollution levels lack a national perspective.

In a strongly-worded statement addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to visit Japan on November 11-12, Japanese women from Fukushima have asked him to “come and see Fukushima before signing India-Japan Nuclear Agreement.” Issued by Fukushima Women Against Nukes, the statement comes amidst  news  that the two countries have “completed the internal procedures for the much-awaited agreement on civil nuclear cooperation.”

Planning for the biennial Vibrant Gujarat world business summit, to be held in January 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state suffers from complete failure to cope up with the adverse impact of industrial investment on the livelihood of local communities, suggests a new report prepared by a group of researchers.

  The Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR), in its new report, “The State of the PC&PNDT Act: India’s losing battle against female foeticide”, which focuses on the on the status of implementation of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PC&PNDT) Act, 1994, has said that the Act has not been implementation in 23 States/UTs, even as 1.3 million girls are found to be “missing” every year.

Modi launching Beti Bachao Beti Padhao in January 2015 The Government of India, at least its Ministry of Women and Child Development, does not seem to think that there is anything to celebrate about implementation of the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP) scheme in Gujarat,  launched  by Prime Minister Narendra Modi from the historic battleground of Panipat in Haryana on January 22, 2015.

The Himalaya Niti Abhiyan (HNA) has sought the intervention of the National Commission for Schedule Tribes (NCST), New Delhi, for stopping illegal eviction of STs and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers from the forest areas of Himachal Pradesh, saying that the state forest and revenue departments have launched a big drive “to evict forest dwellers in the state starting on November 1, 2016.”

Top ten states in ease of doing business The Government of India’s latest inter-state comparison may have humbled Gujarat to No 3 position in ease of doing business, from the No 1 it enjoyed a year ago. However, what should be even more disconcerting to state policy makers is, of the 10 reform categories examined for ease of doing business, Gujarat ranks No 1 just in one. Equally, the assessment, carried out by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), Government of India, in partnership with the World Bank, finds that of the 10 categories examined, Gujarat ranks in the first five positions in just two reform categories –access to land and in commercial disputes resolution enablers.