Budget 2017-18 SC-ST "allocation" 3.93%, against 25.5% population; Economic Survey "ignores" SCs, STs

Allocation to SC-ST, as seen by Delhi Solidarity Group

By Our Representative
In a major exposure of the Government of India’s latest budgetary exercise, a top Delhi-based civil rights group has revealed that the “Economic Survey 2016-17”, presented in Parliament on January 31, the terms Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) have been removed.
Pointing out that it this “clearly points to the priorities of the present ruling dispensation which perhaps wants to convey that indicators of development of SC and ST communities are no more the indicators for national development”, the Delhi Solidarity Group (SDG) in its in-depth analysis has said that the budget has deviated from the “established norm of presenting plan and non-plan components separately,” which will “affect allocation for SC/ST.”
DSG says, “In previous budgets, allocations for SC/ST was mandated for programmes covered for plan period only. and expenditure of establishments after the expiry of plan period were booked under non-plan heads.”
“Thereby”, it adds, “In the figures given in the budget 2016-17, population proportionate allocation for SC/ST was applicable in total budget of Union of India.”
However, this has been abandoned now. The result, says the analysis, is that as against the total budget size of Rs 21,47,000 crore, the allocation to the SCs is Rs 52,393 crore under what is called the special component plan. This comes to 2.44% of the total total budget size, as against the SC population of SC 16.6% in the country (Census 2011).
Significantly, in the previous budget, the allocation was Rs 38,338 crore in the plan budget alone, the analysis claims, adding, if one takes into account 16.6% of SC population, its “due share” in the total budget, including all sorts of expenditure, should have been Rs 3, 56,402 crore.
This, says DSG, suggests that there is a “shortage of allocation” for SC in the budgetary allocation to the tune of Rs. 3, 04,009 crore in 2017-18.
Things are not very different for ST, says the analysis, pointing out that the “allocation made under the ST sub-plan is Rs. 31,920 crore”, as against the the previous year’s of Rs 24,000 crore in the plan budget alone.
Considering that the ST population of India is 8.6% (2011 Census), the analysis says, “The due share of ST in total budget, including all sorts of expenditure should have been Rs 1, 84,642 crore.” This, it adds, suggests that there is a “shortfall” of Rs 1,52,722 crore in 2017-18.
“So”, concludes DSG, “The total amount denied to SC and ST communities is Rs 4, 56,731crore.”

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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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