Medha Patkar with PAFs at NVDA office, Indore The Madhya Pradesh (MP) government has issued a controversial notice to hundreds of project affected families (PAFs) of Gujarat's Narmada dam, belonging to tens of villages of Badwani and Dhar districts of MP, stating that, since they haven’t accepted the land allocated to them by the Land Bank, their “eligibility for alternative agricultural land has exhausted.”

A senior expert with the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) for Public Policy Research, a conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C., has sharply criticized Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his “muddled thinking on economics”, which he says has “undercut a sensible foreign policy.”

Shalini Gera Are the police handing over personal details of activists working on tribal rights issues in Chhattisgarh to armed vigilante groups, which have cropped up with state support with the claim to fight Naxalism? A premier human rights group, People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUDR), has  alleged  that this is what happened on December 20, following their cadres’ meeting with tribals in Bastar region.

  Following Chetan Bhagat's twitter survey, which ended with the result that 57% of his twitter followers are ready to support Narendra Modi if the Prime Minister imposes Emergency, as Indira Gandhi did in 1975, the controversial Indian English writer known for his Modi love, is a disturbed man.

  Perhaps the world's most powerful voice in favour of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's controversial decision to ban Rs 1000 and 500 notes on November 8, noted economist  Prof Jagdish Bhagwati , has said that the move “cannot by itself tackle future of black money”, insisting, the move is no more than “a one-time tax on black money.”

  A recent study by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), a well-known rights-based NGO with presence in several countries, has revealed that Gujarat, which happens to be Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “model state”, has experienced one of the lowest conviction rates in corruption cases registered during 2001-15.

  A new high-profile report supported, among others, by World Bank, has said that the Government of India estimate that the country’s urban population, 420 million or 33% of its total population in 2015, undervalues the “true extent” of urbanization in the country.

The Reservation Bank of India (RBI) has rejected a right to information (RTI) plea seeking access to RBI's board meeting minutes and recommendations to the government, as also related file notings, starting with the date on which the recommendation may have been made to demonetize the Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 currency notes.

Sanjay Gandhi Forbes, the world's prestigious business magazines, has characterized Prime Minister Narendra Modi's note-ban move as an “awful act” which is “breathtaking in its immorality”, adding, “What India has done is commit a massive theft of people's property without even the pretense of due process – a shocking move for a democratically elected government.”

Medha Patkar at NCA, Indore In a letter to the Union environment secretary, well-known social activist Medha Patkar has apprehended that thousands of hectares (ha) of catchment area in the upstream of the Narmada dam in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat still remain “untreated”, putting villages and towns situated next to the river in peril if the dam’s reservoir is filled up to the brink.

Counterview Desk A major reason why the Government of India (GoI) decided to revoke Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) license to Gujarat’s biggest Dalit rights NGO Navsarjan Trust last week is its active participation for Dalit rights campaigns post-Una flogging incident of July 11, 2016 (click  HERE ), which had allegedly begun to damage the ruling BJP’s Dalit electoral base.

A high-profile report by New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), “Bound by Brotherhood: India’s Failure to End Killings in Police Custody”, has accused the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) for having “failed to ensure accountability in custodial deaths” in India.

Shabnam Hashmi of Anhad In a surprise revelation which may create flutter among those supporting civil rights organizations, the Government of India (GoI) reportedly sent notices to Indians who had donated as little as more than Rs 10,000 to the NGO Act Now for Harmony and Democracy (or Anhad), run by well-known human rights activist Shabnam Hashmi.

  In a revelation which is likely to create ripples among Hindutva advocates, a top US research organization, Pew International, has said that Hindus may have made “substantial educational gains in recent decades”, yet the fact is, they “have the largest educational gender gap of any religion in the world”.

  India’s top environmental watchdog, Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), has found Varanasi to be the most toxic city of the country. Notorious for water pollution because of the Ganga river, Varanasi is known to be the most polluted stretch in the country. Now CPCB ha found that of the 227 days for which it measured air quality, the holy city recorded zero good air days.

  A just-published study has revealed the Government of India (GoI) has not been supporting litigations arising from violating National Biological Diversity (DB) Act, 2002, pointing towards how the National Biodiversity Authority (NBA), the country’s watchdog for implementing the Act, has been at the “receiving end” for most of the litigations.

Groundwater at an irrigation farm A recent Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) report has found that groundwater of villages near Vadodara, known as Gujarat’s cultural capital, is highly polluted due to “industrial activity”, mainly because of what it calls “unscientific disposal of hazardous waste water” into the effluent treatment channel.

Well-known Gujarat-based environmental NGO, Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti (PSS), has alleged that the recent decision to lift moratorium on investment in Ankaleshwar, a well-known industrial centre of South Gujarat, was taken without taking into account failure of the Final Effluent Treatment Plant (FETP) to properly treat industrial waste water.

  Two top environmentalists from Gujarat have revealed that a recent joint visit of Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) and Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) officials in Vadodara’s industrial region has found the chemical oxygen demand (COD) of 890 to 1,022 mg per litre of water in channels which are supposed to carry treated, against the maximum norm of 250 mg per litre.

  Government of India may claim that the country’s gross national product (GDP) during 2015-16 grew by 7.56%, one of the highest in the world. However, Credit Suisse, a Switzerland-based multinational financial services group, has said that, in real terms, there was a decline of 0.8% in the country’s total wealth in 2015-16.

  After declaring two months ago that pellet guns’ sale and efficacy as anti-riots weapon cannot be disclosed in public interest, a top Government of India outfit has stated that it does not have “any studies regarding the efficacy of anti-riot weapons such as pellet guns.”

Top human rights activist, fighting the 2002 Gujarat riot victims' cases, Teesta Setavlad, has said the organizations she and her husband Javed Anand represent – Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) or Sabrang Trust – never applied or appealed for, or received grants or donations “intended for the financial assistance of any kind” for the welfare of the “victims-survivors of the 2002 communal carnage in Gujarat” between 2007 and 2014.

It was August first week, 1985. Strictly speaking, this my first foreign trip. Earlier, in late 1960s, I had been to Nepal in a school tour, but that was hardly foreign. I was sent to Havana by my bosses in “Patriot”, the former Delhi-based pro-Soviet daily, to cover world indebtedness conference, called by Cuba’s supreme leader Fidel Castro. This was my first assignment; the effort, apparently, was to ascertain if I could be transferred to the news bureau from the desk. A semi-communist then, I held Castro in high esteem, and I was actually quite excited. Hardly a photographer, I even carried with me to Havana a heavy Nikon SLR, which my maternal uncle, settled in US – Bharat Kinariwala, 90, professor-emeritus at Hawaii University – had given me. I had hardly put to it any use till then. I was sure, I would be able to click some photographs of Castro, which I proudly did, after borrowing a zoom lens from a reluctant photographer in the press gallery. Castro threw a huge party for hun...

Parsottam Vaghela Providing a glimpse of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s model city, Manav Garima Trust (MGT), a voluntary organization working among the Valmiki community for over 15 years, has revealed there are as many as 1,250 Valmiki families are living in western Ahmedabad’s post localities without any basic amenities, not to talk of housing.

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.

  A new report, “Thermal Coal in Asia – Stopping the Juggernaut”, by top international energy consultants, Energy Transition Advisors Pty Ltd, has raised the alarm that India’s fossil fuel subsidies, especially those related with coal, remain a major hurdle in the country’s contribution to achieving climate change target of limiting global warming to 2 degrees centigrade.