A fresh report jointly prepared by two of the world’s best known institutes, the Georgetown University’s Institute for Women, Peace and Security (Washington), and the Peace Research Institute (Oslo), has ranked India a poor 131st in its Women Peace and Security (WPS) Index among 153 countries for 2017-18, worse than other competing BRICS (short form for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries, on one hand, and all of India’s neighbours, except Pakistan, on the other.

Medha Patkar with Ashok Shrimali A new danger awaits the rural areas under the influence of the proposed Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC). If a recent Maharashtra government notification, a copy which is with Counterview, is any indication, it empowers the state government to acquire tribal land for industrial development without seeking any gram sabha nod.

Prof Niranjan Dave In a major embarrassment for Narendra Modi, Prof Niranjan Dave, who was head of the department with the Government Engineering or LE College, Morbi, has contested the Prime Minister's claim in in an election rally that he served people in the aftermath of the tragedy that befell the town after the Macchu dam burst on August 11, 1979.

  Top civil society leaders and experts have got together to tell the World Bank board that it must comply by the recent recommendations of the Bank's Inspection Panel for funding the project (approximately Rs 4,700 crore soft loan) to build a new capital for Andhra Pradesh, Amaravati, which it had prepared following its visit to India in mid-September this year.

  Even as Gujarat goes to polls, a high-profile NGO Plan India’s new Gender Vulnerability Index (GVI) has found that the model state is behind 11 out of 21 major Indian states. On a scale of 1, Gujarat GVI is 0.543. The best GVI is that of Kerala (0.634), and worst that of Bihar (0.41).

Poll spending in 2012, as provided by MLAs The Election Commission (EC) of India and the Narendra Modi government may be under scanner (click HERE ) for "undermining" transparency by refusing to part with any information on the controversial Electoral Bonds scheme, allowing political parties fund their activities secretly.

Open Doors USA, an American non-profit organization, has triggered Hornet's nest by ranking India 15th, next to Saudi Arabia (14th), among 50 top countries where Christians allegedly face "most severe persecution for their faith". Blaming the "persecution" on BJP led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it says, "As a result, radical Hinduism, which was already present under the previous government, has increased steadily."

The Union Finance Ministry, the Election Commission of India (ECI) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) have all claimed in separate replies to a Right to Information (RTI) plea that they do not have any information about the Electoral Bond (EB) scheme, or who influenced the Government of India to launch such the controversial scheme.

Rahul Gandhi with Martin Macwan at DSK Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, who reached out to the non-political Dalit Shakti Kendra (DSK) off Ahmedabad to accept the "largest" tricolour of India, refused by Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani on the ground that the state government "did not have enough space for it", was in shocked to hear that his party in Gujarat had done "pretty little" in raising issues of untouchability.

  While top bureaucrats in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) may have worked overtime to "lobby" and "manage" certain well-known international institutes (click  HERE ) in order to show how Modi's popularity is on the rise and the economy under him is looking up, it appears, they have been less successful with certain institutes. One of them seems to be is the World Economic Forum (WEF), based in Zurich,  known  for "uniting" world political, business  and academic leaders for economic development.

Aliyabet The Gujarat government closing down all the 30 gates on the the Sardar Sarovar Narmada dam in June this year may have "helped" raise the water level to the full reservoir level, 138.68 metres, swelling the dam’s live storage from 1.27 million acre feet (MAF) to 4.73 MAF. However, this has allegedly led to a major ecological destruction downstream of the river, 150 km away, on the river mouth, on the Gulf of Khambhat.

  One of the topmost campaigners against aadhaar, Reetika Khera, has admitted that the marketing of the scheme as “a welfare-enhancing, pro-poor, anti-corruption programme has been hugely successful”, adding, things have gone to the extent that, despite contradictory evidence, “the view that it is helping disadvantaged people is hard to dislodge.”

  In what is being described as “travesty of justice”, the Rajasthan police have arrested Tahir Mohammad and Javed Jabaa, the two eye witnesses in the gruesome murder of Umar Mohammad, who was killed on November 11, after which his body was dumped on railway track. They have been arrested on the basis of FIR No 273/2017 for seeking to smuggle cows.

  Giving a scary picture of inequalities in India, the recently-released “Global Wealth Report 2017”, published by Credit-Suisse, a Swiss multinational financial services holding company, headquartered in Zurich, has  said  that India’s 92% of adults “have net worth less than USD 10,000”, while “a small fraction of the population (just 0.5% of adults) has a net worth over USD 100,000.”

Children amidst asbestos dumping site in Kymore Nirmala Gurung, a former school teacher and headmistress in a secondary school, lived near a factory in a big village, Kymore, in Madhya Pradesh which has been making chrysotile or white asbestos products for over 30 years. The factory was previously a subsidiary of the British company Turner, and Newall PLC and the Belgium company ETEX (Eternit).

  Did Narendra Modi's top bureaucrats from the Gujarat cadre, currently in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), work out a well-planned strategy to lobby with three top international institutes, all headquartered in Washington, World Bank, Moody's and Pew, for ensuring a sharp image make over of Modi ahead of the Gujarat elections, after all three last year seemed least cared to show India under Modi in good light?

Macwan introducing "Gujarat Vikas Samachar" Out of 112 cases of social boycott and forced migration of Dalits across Gujarat over the last 28 years, ever since the anti-atrocities Act came into force in 1989, as many as 85 of them took place during a little more than 14 years when Narendra Modi was chief minister of Gujarat, from October 2001 to May 2014 (click  HERE  for detailed table).

Gaurang Jani and Hemant Shah In a stark revelation, the word “adivasi” (tribal) does not find mention in any of the Gujarati language textbooks, ranging from classes 5th to 12th. Speaking on the state of textbooks being taught in Gujarat schools, Gaurang Jani, professor of sociology, Gujarat University, said that there are 15% tribals in Gujarat, and their children would naturally feel alienated as a result of this type of discrimination.

*Disability-adjusted life-year A new study, published in one of the world’s most prestigious online health journals, “Lancet”, has revealed that, among major Indian states, “model” Gujarat’s mortality and morbidity risk factor as a result of child and maternal malnutrition is higher than as many as 13 of the 21 major Indian states.

A top world expert has termed the world's biggest multinational seeds company, Monsanto, which is now being bought over by Bayer, and is involved in a dispute with the Government of India on how much of royalty it should take back to home on selling it's genetically modified (GM) seeds, as nothing more than a "marketing success."

  A group of prominent citizens has doubted Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s intention to fight black money by demonetizing Rs 1000 and 500 notes, saying, instead of punishing those responsible for Rs 1.14 lakh crore of bad debts, the Government of India has “waived” these over the last 3 years.

  United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation Leo Heller has expressed the apprehension that, despite a 2013 law prohibiting manual scavenging, the “generations-old practice of imposing sanitary tasks onto the lower castes” (Valmikis) would continue because of “the growth in number of toilets.”

  One of the topmost Indian experts on black economy has said that demonetization and Goods and Services Tax (GST) have pushed the Indian economy to the brink, contradicting the Government of India figure of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth of 5.7%, has created a flutter by asserting, "Even former NDA Union minister Yashwant Sinha's estimate of 3.7% growth is an over-estimation."

  A civil society survey, carried out in January-February 2017, but released now, has revealed that only 24.3 percent of the respondents said that they were able to exchange their banned Rs 500 notes “for the same amount”, while 75 percent reported that “an old Rs 500 note was sold for Rs 400 or less in valid currency.”

  In a clear warning on the manner in which Gujarat society is getting increasingly divided along religious and caste lines, a voter behaviour survey ahead of the state assembly polls has revealed that caste or religion is all set to play an important role in polls. Thus, said the survey, in 72.68% of cases, the survey found, caste and religion played a major role in deciding to vote for a criminal candidate.

Nitin Patel The Gujarat government has rejected the demand of the agitating farmers of 68 villages, seeking to cancel the crucial 2009 notification, which has allegedly reserved 566.35 sq km of agricultural area in the outskirts of Ahmedabad for urban development.

The prestigious "Harvard Business Review" (HBR), in a strongly worded commentary to mark one year of noteban, has said that demonetization in a "complex economy" should been preceded by "a sound theory; a rationale for why the underlying assumptions are valid, and the evidence for those assumptions; and cost-benefit analyses, including accounting for the systemic effects, unintended consequences, and learnings from similar actions elsewhere."

Adoption of digital payments: 2017 A recent study, sponsored by MasterCard, one of the top American multinational financial services corporations, has said that, despite the “self-inflicting shock … by demonetizing its currency” a year ago, India beats just one country, the neighbouring Pakistan, in what it calls digital experience – a term used for identifying adoption for online transactions.

  Six top ex-IAS bureaucrats, including two belonging to the Gujarat cadre, CK Koshy and , Dr VV Rama Subba Rao, both of whom served as additional chief secretaries, industry and home, respectively, in the Gujarat government, have taken strong exception to making Aadhaar compulsory, insisting that step by step, it is encroaching upon and disrupting the lives ordinary people, denying entitlements, particularly to the poor.

  In a major setback at a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking to make a big political capital out of the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business report showing India "jump" its global ranking by 30 points, a new report by the high-profile World Economic Forum (WEF) has said that there there is little improvement in India's Global Gender Index ranking, especially in fields of economic participation and health.

  In what should prove to be a warning bell for Gandhians of all hues, a dangerous trend appears to be taking shape, accelerated amidst a sharp upswing of information explosion, especially through the social media. A senior Dalit rights activist, who has been actively involved in organizing the Valmiki community in Gujarat, put out a Facebook post justifying Nathuram Godse murdering Mahatma Gandhi on October 3, next day of Gandhi Jayanti.

Ease of doing business ranking: Blue 2018, Red 2017 Prime Minister Narendra Modi may have tried to  extract  political capital out of the 30 point jump noted in the World Bank’s latest Ease of Doing Business  report , calling the 100th ranking among 190 countries “historic”, a result of what he called “all-round and multi-sectoral reform push of Team India”, but a comparison with the last year’s  report  suggests there is little cheer about it.