Universal maternity benefit: Govt of India allocates "fraction" of what is actually required, say experts, activists

By Our Representative
The Government of India's (GoI's) allocation of Rs 7,348 crore over the next three financial years as universal maternity entitlement has been termed as a “fraction of what is actually required”, even assuming the only two births are covered under the Maternity Benefit Programme (MBP), announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his new year speech.
Strongly objecting to the amount, officially declared by the Ministry of Women and Child Development on January 3, Jean Dreze, Belgian-born Indian development economist and activist who is known to be a top follower of Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, has said that, at the current birth rate of 20 per 1,000 in India, and the GoI's allocation “doesn't add up.”
Says Dreze, who is visiting professor at Ranchi University, the current population is around 130 crore, so the number of births per year must be around 26 million. And, if India really wishes to implement the National Food Security Act (NFSA), 2013, by providing Rs the benefit of Rs 6,000, allocation should be Rs 14,000 per year.
“At Rs 6,000 per birth, universal maternity entitlements (assuming, optimistically, that 10% births are already covered under the formal sector) would cost Rs 14,000 crore per year”, Dreze says.
“However”, he adds, in the plan officially released, “The Central government’s contribution for the next three financial years is only Rs 7,348 crore, or Rs 2,449 crore per year. With a 60:40 ratio for centre/state contributions, this means a total of barely Rs 4,000 crore per year.”
Dreze's objection comes close on the heels of analysts declaring (click HERE to read) that Modi’s claim of “new” maternity benefit scheme of Rs 6,000 to be transferred directly to the beneficiary was “misleading”.
“We fact-checked his claim, and found that the provision of Rs 6,000 to pregnant women already exists as part of the NFSA, 2013”, says an analysis, adding, “Therefore, his claim of the benefit being a new scheme is incorrect.”
Meanwhile, right to food activists have objected to the Ministry of Women and Child allocating only 60% per cent of the amount, leaving the rest to the states to allocate the remaining 40%.
Quoting official sources, Sejal Dand, founder-director, Area Networking and Development Initiatives (ANANDI), which has been working with rural poor women of Gujarat, says, earlier, only day to day implementation and administrative matters were to be be the responsibility of the state governments.
While starting implementation of the NFSA, 2013, a Women and Child Development letter to all state secretaries on November 13, 2013 said that the Act's provision was being extended from select 59 districts to all Indian districts, with the Centre contributing 75% and states 25%. However, on February 3, 2014, the Government of India turned it into a 100% Centrally-sponsored scheme.
Under the scheme, all pregnant women and lactating mothers, excluding the Pregnant Women and Lactating Mothers who are in regular employment with Central or State governments or Public Sector Undertakings, or those who are in receipt of similar benefits under any law are eligible for the cash benefit of Rs 6,000.

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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.

"Misleading" satellite images being shared on Balakot surgical strike on Jaish camp

By Dr Vinay Kate*
With every passing day more questions are being raised about the surgical strike India did in Balakot as a response to Pulwama attacks. So far the Indian media has claimed mass casulaty of 300+ terrorists of Jaish-e-Mohammad in this surgical strike, but there is hardly any report from foreign media about the same.

Extreme repression, corporate loot, cultural genocide "characterise" India's tribal belt

Counterview Desk
As Lok Sabha polls approach, there is considerable ferment in one section of the population -- India's Adivasis, forming about 8.6 per cent of India's population. Things became particularly critical following the February 14, 2019 Supreme Court order, allegedly seeking to evict lakhs of tribals from their forest lands.

Industry in India "barely growing", export growth 0%, whither moral anchors?

Counterview Desk
In a sharp critique of the Modi government, the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A), one of world renowned economist Prof Kaushik Basu, who is Professor of Economics and Carl Marks Professor of International Studies at Cornell University, has told students at the IIM-A’s 54th Annual Convocation on March 16, 2019 that they have a “special responsibility” on their shoulders, “the responsibility to reject narrow sectarianism, uphold scientific thinking, openness to new ideas, and freedom of speech.”

Gujarat model? Industrial effluents "invade" borewells, discharge coloured water in farms

By Rajiv Shah
In a major embarrassment for Gujarat model, of the 21 samples taken by officials of the state government's environmental watchdog Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) in two villages of Vadodara district and analyzed by its laboratory in Gandhinagar, the state capital, to find out pollution level in groundwater, 16 were assessed as highly contaminated – these were, in fact, found to be discharging reddish, brownish, reddish, or yellowish water.

Refugees as criminals? US govt report blames Amit Shah for calling Bangladeshis termites

Counterview Desk
The chapter “Freedom of Movement” of the US State Department’s “India 2018 Human Rights Report”, released recently, has criticized BJP chief Amit Shah for terming alleged Bangladeshis who may be in Assam as “termites”, because their names were struck down from the list of National Register of Citizens, under preparation in the state.
Pointing out that four million residents were excluded from Assam’s final draft list, leading to “uncertainty over the status of these individuals, many of whose families had lived in the state for several generations”, the report regrets, the Indian law does not even contain the term “refugee,” treating refugees like Rohingiyas as “any other foreigners.”
“Undocumented physical presence in the country is a criminal offense. Persons without documentation were vulnerable to forced returns and abuse”, the report says.
Text of the Freedom of Movement chapter: The law provides for freedom of internal movement, foreign travel, emigration, a…

Mental health: India's 95% patients "deprived" of medical care, treatment gap 70%

By Moin Qazi*
Among the many challenges India faces, the most underappreciated is the ongoing mental health crisis. Mental illness is actually India’s ticking bomb. An estimated 56 million Indians suffer from depression, and 38 million from anxiety disorders. For those who suffer from mental illness, life can seem like a terrible prison from which there is no hope of escape; they are left forlorn and abandoned, stigmatized, shunned and misunderstood.

Congress would win just 9 of 26 Lok Sabha seats: Gujarat Assembly segment-wise analysis

By Rajiv Shah
Even as the Congress plans its first working committee meet in Gujarat on February 28 after an almost 58 year gap, there is reason to wonder what is in store for India’s grand old party in a state which has been long been a BJP bastion – in fact ever since mid-1990s. Ahead of the then assembly polls in late 2012, talking with me, a senior Gujarat Congress leader, currently Rajya Sabha MP, frankly said he saw no reason why Congress would win.

"Pro-corporate" Supreme Court order on FRA would further marginalize Adivasis

By VS Roy David, JP Raju*
For millions of Adivasis and other traditional forest dwellers February 13, 2019 will go down in history as the day of apocalypse. This is like the proverbial Black Friday where millions of most marginalized people of India were ordered by malicious anti-people draconian Supreme Court order depriving them the life and livelihood by evicting them from their habitats.

Financial inclusion? Not micro-loans; India's poor "need" investment in health, education

By Moin Qazi*
India has grown into a global powerhouse. Its economy is soaring but the picture on the ground is still quite arid. The green shoots that you see are only a patch of its landscape. Most Indians are hapless victims of inequity. India is one country where intense poverty abounds in the shadow of immense wealth.

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