A Fact Finding team by the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR), which visited Shabbirpur village of Saharanpur district of Uttar Pradesh, has said that the recent violence against Dalits in the village should be seen against the backdrop of “a resurgent Dalit community", which was "moving ahead politically, socially and economically.”

Under fire: Shambhunath Tundiya, Atmaram Parmar Defying scorching heat, top Dalit activists of Gujarat have planned a series of public meetings across the state starting with June 3 at Zanzarka, about 110 kilometres south-west of Ahmedabad, to protest against the alleged failure of elected Dalit representatives to speak up against the attack on Dalits in Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh.

Substantial variation in labour force participation rate among states A  World Bank report, “India Development Update: Unlocking Women’s Potential” (May 2017), has noted that an approximate 10 percentage points decline in female labour force participation rate (LFPR) between 2004-05 and 2011-12 has imposed “constraints on a country’s growth”, and is proving to be a “drag on GDP growth” to the tune of 2.6%.

The World Bank has raised the alarm that while “the macroeconomic impact of demonetization has been relatively limited”, the informal economy, which makes up 40% of the GDP and employing 90% of India’s workers, is “likely to have been hit especially hard”, even as regretting lack of availability of reliable data on this score.

An Australian government-sponsored pilot project, meant to create technical awareness for sustainable groundwater use among villagers of two semi-arid regions of Gujarat and Rajasthan, has revealed how, despite huge official claims, water scarcity continues to bog the regions, adversely impacting girl child education in a big way.

  The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), taking a serious view of complaints into unprecedented torture and solitary confinement of 21 undertrials in Bhopal jail, has asked the DIG (investigation) to constitute a team of officers under a senior superintendent of police to conduct an on-the-spot investigation and submit a report at the “earliest”.

  Will the Narendra Modi government ever admit that there are some “negatives” in whatever it has done over the last three years? In a surprise move, the Press Bureau of Information (PIB), operating directly under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, in a press note first published negatives along with positives, but finding it too embarrassing removed it from the website.

Solid waste site in Surat In a ruling of far-reaching implications, not just for Surat but also for Ahmedabad, the National Green Tribunal (NTG) has asked the Surat authorities in South Gujarat to take a decision and “issue work order for commencing the work of closure of Khajod open dumping site within one month”, even as start working on the action plan for scientific disposal of solid waste.

  Estimating that a whopping 4.48 lakh people were displaced in India due to internal conflicts and violence in India last year, a new report, jointly prepared by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) has said that there are 7.96 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the country.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi at AfDB meet on May 23 While there isn’t anything extraordinary for the African Development Bank (AfDB) holding its annual meeting outside the continent, in India, experts believe, through the high profile meet in Gandhinagar, which began on May 22 and ends on May 24, the Government of India is seeking to provide a platform to Indian corporates to invest in African continent, especially in agriculture and mining.

  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.

  A whopping 1.85 lakh plus people have signed a  petition  floated by well-known columnist-activist Sucheta Dalal of the Moneylife Foundation asking Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Urjit Patel to intervene in what it calls “unfair treatment that bank customers suffer in the form of frequent, arbitrary and one-sided increase in banking charges.”

Guru Golwalkar Facts have come to light suggesting that the  RSS’ experiment  to have “fair”, “tall” and “customized” baby has an interesting Gujarat connection: It was first reportedly floated by its topmost ideologue  Guru Golwalkar  way back in 1960 while giving a lecture in Gujarat University.

  The Madhya Pradesh government is all set to evict around 15,000 families by July-end in the Narmada Valley, even as Gujarat government is readying itself to close down the 30-odd gates on the Narmada dam in order to take the water level in the dam’s reservoir from the present 121.92 metres to 138.64 metres.

  About 100 kilometres from the Gujarat border, not very far from the Narmada river in Dhar district of Madhya Pradesh, Nisarpur village is on the warpath. With forcible eviction looming large over the village and government sending police officials to warn people, here, thousands of women and men are on the street every day.

Modi's second "inauguration" of SAUNI: August 30, 2016 The Government of India agency Central Water Commission (CWC) may have denied  reports that it has rejected a Gujarat government request for funds for the high-profile Saurashtra Narmada Avtaran Irrigation Yojana (SAUNI) on the ground that there is not enough water to divert Narmada waters to Saurashtra.

  The Government of India’s quarterly employment survey (QES) suggest that the rate of job creating in India has contracted sharply by 64 per cent after 2014, the year Prime Minister Narendra Modi took over reins of power in the country.

% children receiving adequate diet A fresh analysis of the data put out by the National Family Health Survey 2015-16 has found that Gujarat, the state considered model by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for others to follow, has one of the lowest percentage of children in the age group 6-23 months “getting adequate diet”.

There is a whopping 21% decline in just one year among urban Indian youth who believe that the Narendra Modi government has been successful in its fight against terrorism. Top Delhi-based consultant, LocalCircles, headquartered in Santa Clara, US, had found that last year 72% urban citizens felt terrorism had reduced under Modi, but this year it is down to 51%.

  Were funds meant for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious national cleanliness drive, Swacch Bharat Mission (SBM), diverted for making his Narmada rally at Amarkantak in Madhya Pradesh a grand success? It would seem so, if facts dug out by a recent  report   are any indication.

  The Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board, which declared science stream results on May 12, wants those seeking copy of the corrected answer sheets to apply online, pay Rs 300 per answer sheet, allegedly in complete in violation of a Supreme Court order, which allows students to obtain it through a Right to Information (RTI) plea within 48 hours.

Electricity meters, public toilets not spared in demolition By Our Representative A fact-finding team consisting of scholars from prominent Mumbai-based institutes has suggested that insistence on an “approach road” for a proposed luxury hotel being constructed by prominent builders could be the main reason behind the recent demolition of nearly 1,500 slum-dwellers’ houses in the in Ambedkar Nagar basti at Cuffe Parade, Colaba.

The Chhattisgarh government may have suspended Varsha Dongre, a Dalit police officer, for a Facebook post for seeking an end to custodial torture of adivasi women, but on August 26, 2016 the state High Court had praised her “persistence and tenacity” for “a long drawn out battle” which brought to surface “irregularities, acts of corruption, nepotism, favouritism etc.”

  In a unique protest in Gujarat’s Surendranagar town, Dalit rights activists on Wednesday handed over 182 bottles filled with plastics taken out of cows’ carcasses to the district collector, who was told to give these to each of the 182 MLAs of the state, asking them to explain to them as to who should be held responsible for the death of these cows.

Indore district collector banning anti-demonetization stories In a compilation of attacks on the freedom of press in India, well-known media-watch site, “The Hoot” has said that in the 16 months for which it has collected data, from January 2016 to April 2017, as many as 54 attacks took place on journalists, apart from 25 were threats to journalists.

  The powerful anti-dam organization, Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), stepped up pressure on Monday by creating a unique 10 km long human chain against the Narmada Control Authority (NCA), which is to meet on May 9 to decide on closing the Narmada dam’s gates, saying such a step would submerge 244 villages and a town.

A recent World Bank report on gender-based violence in Kerala, the state known for its best social indicators across India, has shockingly found that there is a much higher underreporting of incidence of sexual violence among Hindus compared to the state's two other major religious groups – Muslim and Christian.

In a new  guide  on how to operate in a changed atmosphere of intolerance, journalists across the world have been told make it “difficult for anyone to try and intercept” their emails, text messages and phone calls as part of the measures “to make the lives of those who want to uncover your sources and the information being revealed to you much harder.”

A top healthcare report prepared by one of the world’s most well-known consultants, KPMG, has regretted that currently 60 per cent hospitals, 75 per cent dispensaries and 80 per cent doctors are “located in urban areas, serving only 28 per cent of the country’s population”.

Nationwide protests against the Asian Development Bank's (ADB’s) 50 years of “inequitable” and “unjust” development, which began on May 1, has taken a new turn, with people’s organizations terming smart city and other urban beautification projects funded by ADB and other international financial institutions (IFIs) “anti-poor.”

  In a rare show of effort to seek support in Gujarat, leaders of the protesting workers working in the Trump Taj Mahal Hotel of the US have decided to hold a public meeting at the Ahmedabad Textile Management Association (ATMA) auditorium, Ahmedabad on May 11.

  Facts have come to light suggesting a two-decades-old causeway-cum-weir in Surat on one of the biggest rivers of Gujarat, Tapi, considered suryaputri (sun’s daughter) in folklore, has caused unprecedented environmental pollution in South Gujarat, with some of the top industries in the region discharging pollutants into it.

Asbestos textile cuttings in a Vadodara shop A new report “National Asbestos Profile: India”, prepared by Vadodara-based civil rights organization, People’s Training and Research Centre (PTRC), has found that Gujarat accounts for 49% of all industries of India where asbestos, considered one of the most hazardous commodities, is used, followed by neighbouring Maharashtra (18%).

  People’s movements and civil society organizations have begun a series of protests against the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB’s) across India to protest against what the organizers call “gross human rights violations, loss of livelihood, and environmental destruction caused by the its development model.”