The recent Government of India  decision  to make its credit-linked subsidy scheme for urban housing more attractive for the middle income groups by offering them a higher carpet area than what hitherto was the case has come under sharp criticism of the country's top urban experts, who say, it would dilute the "core pro-poor character" of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's much publicised urban housing thrust.

In what is seen a victory for the top news portal "The Wire", which   republished   an article by Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and three other journalists from the "Economic and Political Weekly" (EPW), "Modi Government’s Rs 500-Crore Bonanza to the Adani Group", Principal Senior Civil Judge Jaiminkumar R Pandit, Bhuj, Kutch, deciding on the interim application, has "rejected" the defamation plea against the publishers and authors of the article, even as directing them to remove a sentence and a word from it.

While the Narendra Modi government may want to fight gender inequality by passing the triple talaq bill in the Lok Sahba, a recent study has revealed that Delhi’s 75% of young Hindu women in the group 18-25 practice ghunghat. Based on high profile Social Attitude Research, India (SARI) survey, the study also finds that, in this young age, whopping 98% women in rural Rajasthan, 90% in urban Rajasthan, and 91% in rural Uttar Pradesh, and 90% in urban Uttar Pradesh practice ghughat.

  Raising a major policy issue, a top advocacy group, Mines, Minerals and People (MM&P) has regretted that the plight of the "mining children" is not the responsibility of the Ministry of Mines, Government of India, which looks after all the mines in India, and the result is a strange "mess": the lives of children as a result of mining has to be addressed by other departments like child welfare, education, tribal welfare, labour, environment and others.

Is India's "sidelined" foreign minister Sushma Swaraj at loggerheads with right-wing pro-Narendra Modi trolls, who make no stone unturned in attacking anyone criticizing the Prime Minister on the popular micro blogging site Twitter? It would seem so, if what is being termed as her recent "kneejerk responses" to some of the pro-Modi twitterati is any indication.

  In a significant revelation, a former chairman of the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) has said that a report, prepared under him, recommending to the NDA government under Atal Behari Vajpayee that Hindus be treated as minorities in non-Hindu majority states of India was “pooh-poohed” by BJP leaders and “cold shouldered” by the government.

Gujarat's well-known environmentalists and experts led by Rohit Prajapati have taken strong exception to sudden sharp rise in demolitions, tree felling and clearing of vegetation, dumping of debris, and discharge of sewage, dredging, digging, filling, levelling, construction, etc. along the Vishwamitri river in the state's cultural capital, Vadodara.

Christophe Jaffrelot The Gujarat elections may be over, but the dilemma whether “angry” Patidar community – forming 12% of Gujarat – voted against the BJP remains strong.Young Patidar leader Hardik Patel, in a state of disbelief, says, this happened because the Electronic Voting Machines were tampered with, insisting, had it been a free and fair polls, the BJP’s tally couldn’t be more than 80-82, others do not seem to agree instead of 99 in a house of 182.

  In a major setback to the son of BJP president Amit Shah, Jay, who had filed a Rs 100 crore defamation case against "The Wire" for an  article  on meteoric rise ("16,000 times") in his business activities following the party's ascension to power at the Centre in 2014, the civil court, Mirzapur, Ahmedabad, has vacated the "ex parte ad interim injunction" imposed on the  news portal.

The airport-cum-aerotropis site at Jewar The Government of India’s recent “in principle”  clearance  to the international airport at Jewar, off Delhi, 16 years after the idea was first floated, is one of the several aerotrpolis projects proposed across the world, which have been cited by a top campaign organization as points of concern for massive evictions, affecting environment and livelihood.

Vikas and his sister Kritika By Our Representative Pointing towards a whopping digital gender divide, UNICEF in a new  report , has said that if globally, 12 per cent more men than women used the internet in 2017, "in India, less than one third of internet users are female."  Elsewhere , UNICEF warns, "Recently, India has made a public push towards a more digitalized economy, including reducing dependency on physical cash. If girls and women remain digitally illiterate, they risk becoming further marginalized in society and at home."

  The Gujarat state assembly polls, which saw the BJP's tally come down to 99 from 115 in 2012, has shown that,/while the Congress has been able to "catch" the wrath of the rural voters, it failed to impress the urban citizens. According to one estimate, out of 55 urban seats, Congress won just 12, while BJP won 43. On the other hand, in the rural areas, out of 127 seats, BJP won 57 seats, while the Congress won 71.

 Mahul, Mumbai's rehabilitation site for the people affected by the Tansa Pipeline Project -- which seeks to replace the 100-year old water pipelines from Tansa reservoir and construction of a new 17.5-km tunnel -- is in the midst of a controversy following a sample survey of 130 children at the site, carried out by the Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan (GBGBA).

  In a major revelation, a top report by an international non-profit organization, World Inequity Lab, the total per adult income among the top 0.001% of India’s population rose by a whopping 3,083% between 1980 and 2016, compared to just about 235% in the world. In Europe it rose just by 120% and in US-Canada by 629%.

In a shocking accusation, Subir Ghosh -- the writer who shot into prominence for controversially criticising Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), India's top industrial house, for cronyism in a book he co-authored, "Gas Wars: Crony Capitalism and the Ambanis" -- has called Gujarat-based journalists, without naming them, of "intellectual laziness" for failing to expose state PSU Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation (GSPC). In his new book, which was released recently in Ahmedabad ahead of state assembly elections, "Grand Illusion: The GSPC Disaster and the Gujarat Model", Ghosh does not stop here, he continues to heap insults on Gujarat journalists, saying, they did not report or question the the GSPC's actual reserves in its Krishna-Godavari misadventure, announced by Narendra Modi to be 20 trillion cubic feet (tcf). Ghosh says, not only did newspaper reports seemed to buy the Modi argument of the 20 tcf claim as being "proved"...

President at Ghela Somnath temple, near Jasdan, Sept 4 There is strong flutter among Sangh Parivar insiders. For the first time, they have begun conceding, the party's Hindutva agenda is falling apart, that too in a state which has been it's political lab since mid-1980s. Riding on this agenda, based on which the party ruled Gujarat for 22 years, Narendra Modi stirringly emerged on the national canvas in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, winning comfortable majority.

Allubhai Living in a continued state of fear even nine months after the attack on his son, allegedly by Bajrang Dal activists on March 24, 2017, Allubhai of Vadagam village in Dhansura block of Aravalli district, Gujarat, complains that no action has yet been taken against those who tried to instigate the communal divide by seeking to whip up the love jehad bogey.

  Even as the Government of India continues to bask in glory over Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rising from 5.7% to 6.3% in the second quarter of 2017-18, two senior economists have come up with data to suggest that there was deceleration in key sectors like agriculture, manufacturing and construction, and, "more importantly, in investment".

Prof YK Alagh Even as Union finance minister Arun Jaitley has  claimed , while belatedly releasing the party’s manifesto, that Gujarat has recorded “an average growth rate of 10% in the last five years… at a time when there was no boom in the global or national economy”, veteran economist Prof YK Alagh has told Counterview that the growth rate for agriculture at constant prices (discounting inflation) has been about 1.5% over the last two years.

Right to Information (RTI) replies from the Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), which is responsible for issuing im port licenses, as also Central Vigilance Commission (CVC, which exercises jurisdiction over DGFT) have revealed that the anti-graft system of both the organizations have failed to establish culpability of any official in any of the 180+ complaints of corruption and vigilance received by them between April 2013-February 2017.

  In a submission to Union finance minster Arun Jaitley, India's well-known advocacy group, Right to Education (RTE) Forum, has has raised the alarm that the budgetary allocation for universal education, sought to be achieved through the Government of India's flagship programme, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) is down by 17%.

Subir Ghosh In a new book, Subir Ghosh , Bangalore-based journalist, researcher and writer, quoting an ex-Government of India bureaucrat, has alleged that the former bluechip state public sector undertaking (PSU) Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation (GSPC) has had links with a company that was associated with dubious business concerns mentioned in the infamous Panama Papers.