Hansaben and Gitaben Gitaben's husband, belonging to India's most marginalised Dalit community, Valmikis, died while cleaning up a gutter in Ahmedabad in 2006. Though she was given compensation of Rs 2 lakh and a job by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC), she has still not received the Rs 10 lakh compensation she should get on the basis of the March 27, 2014 Supreme Court order. Same is the case with Hansaben, whose husband died died in the year 2000.

Modi at Sharadotsav Starting with 2005, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as Gujarat chief minister, created a well-oiled mechanism, under which he made top tycoons to fund, and also politically support, his well-publicized festivals and business meetings, including the biennial Vibrant Gujarat world business summits, and in return doled away huge concessions to them.

  Why did hundreds of shanties go up in flames amidst the demolition drive undertaken by the Mumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Friday? In a strongly-worded statement, the Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan (GBGBA), a Mumbai-based civil rights organization, has blamed it on accidents caused by gas cylinders getting exploded and a "response" to the surprise BMC move.

Union minister Mahesh Sharma A civil society investigation by organizations working in US, UK and India has alleged that there was massive "medical manipulation" in the so-called final report and the charge-sheet filed by the police in the now famous Pehlu Khan  lynching  incident on April 1, underlining, this manipulation took place at the behest of a top minister in the Narendra Modi government.

  A recent fact-finding report on how the Bihar floods this year affected the marginalized communities in Araria and Kishanganj districts, jointly prepared by National Dalit Watch, National Campaign on Dalit human Rights, All-India Dalit Mahila Adhikar Manch and Jan Jagran Shakti Sangathan, has said that there was gross neglect of "huge population of Muslims and Dalits in giving them relief and rescue."

A new study of gender bias in India’s Bollywood movies suggests that whether it is plots, posters or trailers, a male is mentioned around 30 times in a plot while a female is mentioned only around 15 times, adding, “There is a consistency of this ratio from 1970 to 2017(for almost 50 years).”

The hut in which Nagamma family lives A People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), Karnataka, investigation has revealed that Jharkhand is not alone where starvation deaths have taken due to lack of the aadhaar document. A report based on the investigation by Narasimhappa TV was prepared following a  news story  citing opposing claims of the reasons for three deaths in a Dalit family in a village in Gorkana district in July this year.

Ten worst cities Arcadis , a leading global design and consultancy firm for natural and built assets, in a new  report  has ranked Mumbai and New Delhi lowest of the 50 cities it selected for sustainable cities water index in order to identify which cities are best placed to harness water for future success.

A recent high-profile report on the imposition of Goods and Services Tax (GST) on handmade products has complained that the Government of India (GoI) has not shown any consideration for 90 million agricultural households, "who necessarily are connected to the artisan sector and sometimes overlap in activities."

  While the Government of India (GoI) made linking of aadhaar with bank accounts  compulsory  this June, ironically, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which is supposed to control all financial operations of banks, has not issued any order to this effect. This has come to light even as all banks are on an overdrive to push customers to link aadhaar numbers to bank accounts, lest their accounts would be blocked.

  In a sharply-worded statement, well-known anti-dam organization, Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), has accused the Rally of Rivers campaign, led by Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev Maharaj, going on across India allegedly with the support of the establishment, of playing in the hands of India's corporate interests.

Average trend of 38 countries By Our Representative A dangerous trend appears to have overtaken India. In a survey carried out by one of the world's most well-known US-based research institutes, Pew, as many as 55% Indians support an autocratic rule, which is the highest among the 38 countries from which samples were collected by interviewing 41,953 individuals, telephonically and face-to-face.

Source: Labour Bureau, Shimla A top Government of India document has said that, in “model” Gujarat, the real wages of both male and female agricultural workers in 2016-17 were worse than most major Indian states. At Rs 223 per day, Gujarat’s male agricultural wages were lower than all but three of 15 major Indian states; and for females agricultural workers, Rs 202, they were worse than all but five of 15 major Indian states.

Jay Prakash Narayan The ninth edition of  "Sarthak Jalso" , a unique Gujarati half-yearly journal edited by well-known writer Urvish Kothari, has brought to light how RSS cadres and the BJP's parent organization, Jan Sangh, behaved as ultra-nationalists during the Emergency days (1975-77), talked high of patriotism, but were equally quick in apologizing to the authorities about their opposition to what is considered as a dark spot of Indian democracy.

  By Our Representative India has slipped in Global Hunger Index (GHI) by three points ranks – from 97th position to 100th among the 119 countries surveyed. Worked out by Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), what should be of particular concern for the country’s policy makers is, it ranks worse among its competing countries.

Crowd in Petlad, Central Gujarat, on Rahul Gandhi's visit Even as Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi this week completed the second leg of his whirlwind visit to Gujarat ahead of the state assembly polls, to be held in December, all eyes are set on whether the party, which got 38.9% votes in the 2012 polls as against the BJP’s 47.9%, would be able win over the huge crowds Gujarat's Congress leaders had mobilized for him.

A top Washington DC-based institute in its new  report  on financial and digital inclusion has sharply criticized the Government of India (GoI) for its demonetization move of November 8, 2016, underlining that the “abrupt announcement led to economic disruption and other significant harms.”

  By Our Representative Marking the 12th anniversary of the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005, Gujarat's independent RTI watchdog Mahiti Adhikar Gujarat Pahel (MAGP) has regretted that though 55% of those using RTI are from rural areas, and seek answers on issues related to panchayat functioning, rural jobs guarantee scheme NREGA, housing, pension schemes, land matters etc., women RTI users are less than 5%.

  One of India's premier independent consultants, Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), has estimated that India's urban unemployment rate in the week ended October 8 is 8.2 per cent, the highest in the past 11 months. This has happened, says CMIE, despite the fact that the "urban labour participation rate has recovered to its level during the last December-January period."

Herve Falciani In a significant ruling, the Central Information Commission (CIC) has held the Special Investigation Team (SIT), constituted by the Government of India to investigate all matters relating to black money in 2014 soon after Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led BJP won a resounding victory in Lok Sabha polls, is a public authority under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005.

  In a move that has shocked farm workers’ activists, a high-level Government of India committee headed by a senior bureaucrat has recommended that the wages paid under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) cannot be on par with minimum agricultural wages law for rural farm workers.

  Even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday was laying foundation stone for the long-pending scheme for constructing Rs 4,000 crore Bhadbhut barrage on the Narmada river's mouth on the Bay of Khambhat, attracting media attention, what is little known is, about the same time, hundreds of fisherfolk waved black flags at him, riding on about 100 fishing boats.

In what could be the eye-opener for India’s top education policy makers, a World Bank flagship  report  on education has expressed serious concern over the fact that India lags behind such “backward” countries such as Ghana, Uganda, Zambia, Kenya, Tanzania, Liberia, Yemen, Nepal, Morocco, Iraq and Nicaragua in learning skills at the primary school level.

Ramzanbhai: In black bandi Kankrej, one of the best cow breeds in the world originating in Kutch, Gujarat, has suffered a major decline by about 70% because of the environmental destruction caused by the state forest department's "faulty" policy to promote a wild weed called gando baval. Once sown, the wild weed spreads like wild fire, devouring all types of vegetation, one reason it is called gando or mad baval (tree) in Gujarat.

  A recent journalistic investigation into the life of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883-1966), whom BJP politicians revere more than any other freedom fighter, has claimed that at the time when Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose was raising his Indian National Army (INA) to confront the British in India, Savarkar "helped the colonial government recruit lakhs of Indians into its armed forces."