By A Representative  The “Economic Survey: 2017-18”, released by the Government of India a couple of days ago, has warned that the slowdown, having lasted at least five years, “has already surpassed the typical duration of slowdown episodes”, adding, “If it continued through 2017, as seems likely, it would have reached the six-year duration recorded in the exceptionally severe cases.”

By A Representative Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s much-publicized Pradhan Mantri Matru Vendana Yojana (PMMVY), “launched” last year, will deprive entitlement to 57% of needy pregnant mothers. Revealing this, India’s well-known advocacy group, Right to Food Campaign (RFC) has said this is the direct consequence of restriction imposed to providing benefit to “to only the first birth”.

By A Representative India’s top advocacy group fighting for the workers employed under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, NREGA Sangharsh Morcha (NSM), has insisted that any budget less than Rs 80,000 crore would be “insufficient to meet even the projected demand for work timely payment of wages.”

By Fr Cedric Prakash sj* Exactly seventy years ago on 30 January 1948, Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated. On his death, in an impromptu and highly emotional radio address to the nation, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the then Prime Minister of India said, “the light has gone out of our lives and there is darkness everywhere.” Nehru went on to add, “The light has gone out, I said, and yet I was wrong. For the light that shone in this country was no ordinary light. The light that has illumined this country for these many years will illumine this country for many more years, and a thousand years later, that light will be seen in this country and the world will see it and it will give solace to innumerable hearts. For that light represented something more than the immediate past, it represented the living, the eternal truths, reminding us of the right path, drawing us from error, taking this ancient country to freedom”. Nehru thus voiced the sentiments of millions of Indians- then and perhaps even...

Sheshu Babu India is a complex nation with varied culture and multiple languages. India has the second highest languages(780) after Papua New Gunea (839), according to Wikipedia. But according to readmeindia.com , there are as many as 880 languages in2016 (Total Languages in India -- Past and Present , September 10, 2016). Article 343 deals with official languages. Estimates of the 2001 census suggest that about 41.1% of total population speak Hindi. The Eighth Schedule lists 22 official languages .( constitution.org ). There are many dialects of Hindi. Recently, India's external minister said that the United Nations (UN) should adopt Hindi along with other official languages of UN ("India wants Hindi as official language",  hindustantimes.com , Jan 3 2018) and is ready to bear Rs 400 crore as expenses.  But as Shashi Tharoor rightly asked in Parliament ( thehindu.com ): What would be the purpose of making Hindi as an official language of the UN? Out of six languages, o...

Harsh Mander protests vigilantism off Alwar By  A  Representative Sixty-seven retired IAS, IFS (foreign) and IPS officers, in an open letter have sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "clear" and "immediate" response to sharp rise in "violence and discrimination" against minorities in India, seeking his "firm action against the perpetrators of such hate crimes against minorities in this country by the respective law enforcement authorities."

By Fr Cedric Prakash sj* Exactly seventy-three years ago on 27 January 1945, the Soviet Red Army liberated the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camps in Poland. What was uncovered on that unforgettable winter morning was perhaps the most brutal stories in the history of humankind. Today a black-and –white plaque in Auschwitz stands testimony to this crime against humanity stating, “Auschwitz was the largest Nazi German Concentration and Death Camp in the years 1940-1945. The Nazis deported at least 1,300,000 people to Auschwitz:1,100,000 Jews;140,000- 150,000 Poles;23,000 Roma(Gypsies)15,000 Soviet Prisoners of War;25,000 Prisoners from other ethnic groups;1,100,000 of these people died in Auschwitz; approximately 90% of the victims were Jews. The SS murdered the majority of them in gas chambers”. The numbers are horrific enough; a chill goes down one’s spine when one realizes the barbaric methods used to torture the prisoners who lived in these concentration camps. Another board in Au...

Modi atop Narmada dam on September 17 By A Representative Strongly arguing as to how the Narmada dam was filled up ahead of the Gujarat assembly elections, which took place in mid-December 2017, senior farmers' leader Sagar Rabari of Khedut Samaj – Gujarat (KSG) has said, quoting official data , that on July 1, the water level in the 138.68 metre dam was at 114.97 metres, but on October 1, it was allowed to reach 130.74 metres, all to whip up sentiments of people around a river considered sacred by people.

By A Representative Even as the Government of India has  chosen nine more cities to make them "smart", a top data analysis site has revealed that less than a quarter of central funds for four major national programmes for India’s urban renewal have so far been either sanctioned or used.

By  A  Representative In a move that has made Opposition Congress raise eye-brows, Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani has begun consultations to appoint parliamentary secretaries, allegedly to manage "growing dissent" in the party because of failure to satisfy all the groups -- caste and regional -- seeking ministerial berth.

By A Representative Is Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani seeking to set up Gujarat's biggest China-backed steel plant in Mundra, Kutch district, without verifying that the promoter private company has not taken any environmental clearance? It would seem is, if a letter written by well-known environmental expert, Mahesh Pandya, to CK Mishra, secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change (MoEFCC), Government of India is any indication.

By Moin Qazi* Not long after Nirmala Geghate took over as sarpanch in Wanoja, a remote hamlet in northern Maharashtra, groups of young men stopped hanging out in front of the shop at the village square, where they used to ogle and catcall female laborers who walked by in dusty saris. There were several ripple effects of the new found women power in the village .Enrollment of girls in the local school increased. A mother asked for and received a mobile phone from her husband, which is a rare luxury for rural females. Other women who had been confined to their homes were suddenly allowed to venture outside the village boundaries for the first time. A unique policy experiment in village-level governance that mandates one-third representation of women in positions of local leadership has revolutionised gender status across millions of villages in India. In 1993, the government brought in an epochal legislation called the ‘Panchayati Raj Act’ which reserves seats for women on panchayats (co...

By  A  Representative Washington-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) has taken strong exception to American President Donald Trump failing to raise human rights violations with India. In its "World Report 2018", the HRW has cited the US-India joint statement issued during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the US to say that it did not even have "a token mention of pressing human rights issues in India, including limits on free speech and attacks on religious minorities."

Counterview Desk Even as ranking one of the worst – 177th among 180 countries – in Environmental Performance Index (EPI), a joint study by the World Economic Forum (WEF), Yale and Columbia universities – released around the time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi the addressed the WEF in Davos – has regretted that India “India has made little progress reducing air pollution levels”, while China has begun achieving the much needed “stability.”

By Fr Cedric Prakash sj* On 21 January 2018 I complete two full years since I left Ahmedabad and reached Beirut, to work here with the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) in the MENA Region. Looking back at these two eventful years, I realise that there is much to be thankful for: I have learnt and received much in my interactions with the refugees and the displaced.

State of garment sector workers in 7 countries By A Representative At a time when top Indian American economist Prof Arvind Panagariya, known to be close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi,  wants Government of India (GoI) to drop the minimum wage criterion for labour-intensive garment sector to survive, top international NGO Oxfam said, wages in India’s garment sector are already one of the lowest in the seven countries it has studied.

By A Representative Strongly refuting Gujarat government claim  that just about 4.7 million acre feet (MAF) of water is available from Narmada dam, which is more than 50% -- or 9 MAF -- that should be made available to Gujarat, hence no Narmada water will be available for irrigation after March 15, top farmers' leader Sagar Rabari has wondered: How much land is being irrigated from the dam's water?

By A Representative In a major embarrassment to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who addresses the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos on Tuesday, India ranks worse than all its neighbours in the new Inclusive Development Index (IDI) which it has released on the day WEF summit began in the Swiss city, January 22. Ranking 62nd out of 74 emerging economies, India's ranking is worse than not just China but also Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal.

By  A  Representative A senior Indian American economist, Prof Pranab Bardhan, has said that, as against Prime Minister Narendra Modi's big promise of creating 100 million jobs to win the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, what one is witnessing today is a movement in just the opposite direction: "We have a total number of workers exceeding 50 million who are either unemployed or underemployed", he has said in a comprehensive interview .

By Moin Qazi* A development professional’s career demands not just technical skills but empathy; not a form of empathy that comes from superiority, but one born from a profound humility. l’ve learned hard lessons that have shaped my ideas about good principles and practices in development. The most abiding lesson is that we should value people over projects, and at the same time value effectiveness over good intentions. There was an occasion for me in my professional career when my managerial acumen was put to a rigorous test. The farmers in northern Maharashtra had poorly suffered on account of low yields of cotton. Additionally, the government procurement prices for cotton were pegged low. As a result, our loan recoveries plummeted. I conducted a detailed assessment of the farmers and realized that their plight was genuine and a rehabilitation package had to be worked out. I informed my bosses in my report that on account of the twin effect of low yield and low prices, the farmers di...

By A Representative Sharply reacting to Counterview story (click HERE ), which said, quoting Gujarat government sources, that the state's farmers will not be provided with Narmada waters this summer because the waters would diverted to Madhya Pradesh agricultural fields in view of the elections there this year, a top aide of Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani has said, "There is real shortage, and this the only reason why Gujarat farmers wouldn't be able to get waters."

By A Representative The recent  arrest  of two Odisha adivasi activists who had campaigned against the Korean multinational company POSCO -- Judhistira Jena, 60, and Babula Samal, 45, both residents of Dhinkia village, Jagatsinghapur district -- is all set to turn into a major human rights issue, with a civil rights organization and two well-known legal luminaries saying it outlines "a frightening picture of hounding of adivasi villagers" in the state.

Water in Narmada canal ahead of Gujarat polls By A Representative A well-informed Gujarat government source has told Counterview that a major reason why the Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Ltd (SSNNL) recently declared there would be “no water” from the multi-purpose irrigation scheme, Sardar Sarovar dam, to Gujarat farmers starting March 15, 2018, is Madhya Pradesh elections, scheduled for this year-end.

By Rajiv Tyagi* Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his trip to the US in 2015, met with CEOs of companies with a combined worth of 4.5 trillion USD, more than twice India's GDP. The main takeaway from the trip was that India needs to work on infrastructure and ease-of-doing-business issues and laws that corporates find too restrictive. Many expressed their worry about Internet censorship and Government snooping, some about corruption and the bureaucrat-politician nexus and others about India's business laws. These are all points anyone could have told Mr. Modi; he did not have to travel to ask CEOs of companies in the US. There are however, other points that no CEO or head of state will ever say in public... When we wish to invite billions of US Dollars worth of investment to India, we have to ensure that we project an image of a scientifically driven society, of a nation driven by the rule of law, by a judiciary that can be expected to deliver impartial judgments without bri...

By A Representative Members of the Campaign For Survival and Dignity (CSD), Odisha, a forest rights organization, have told Nanda Kumar Sai, chairperson of National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST), Government of India, that, contrary to huge propaganda by the state government, about 1.29 lakh out of a total of 6.05 lakh individual forest rights (IFR) claims have been rejected in Odisha.

By Nava Thakuria* For many people in eastern India, Bangladeshi means Bengali. It indicates that everyone living in Bangladesh must be a Bengali. But in reality, Bangladesh is a tiny neighbouring nation bordering West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura with a secular identity comprising various ethnic tribes. The populous country is however dominated by Muslim population where almost everyone speaks Bengali language. The people of Assam somehow maintain a strained relationship with the Bengali people, even though some of the distinguished Bengali personalities immensely contributed for the growth of Assamese language and culture. One can remember the contributions of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Ashutosh Mukherjee, Prafullachandra Ray, Shyama Prasad Mukherji, Annada Sankar Ray, Rajmohan Nath, Padmanath Bidyavinod, Bibhubhusan Choudhury, Arun Purkayastha, Arun Guha, Hemanga Biswas, Baidyanath Mukherji, Basanta Kumar Das, Arun Chanda, Amalendu Guha, Nanda Benarji, Pulak Banerji, Rabin...

Factors contributing to pollution-attributable mortality Counterview Desk A new study has found that high pollution levels contributed to nearly 1.1 million deaths in 2015, or 10.6% of the total number of deaths in India, with "the burden falling disproportionately (75%) on rural areas". The study raises the alarm that if no action is taken, "population exposures to PM2.5 are likely to increase by more than 40% by 2050."

By A Representative Following the Government of India decision to stop Haj Subsidy to Muslims, a minority rights organization has, in a letter to Union home minister Rajnath Singh, sought a white paper from the Government of India (GoI) on the types of subsidies being offered to different religious organizations.

AIFRTE statement condemning the abusive and threatening public reference on Facebook by ABVP student against Prof K Laxminarayana, University of Hyderabad, and partisan and criminal inaction of the University authorities: The All India Forum for Right to Education (AIFRTE) strongly condemns the abusive and threatening public reference on Facebook to senior Prof. K. Laxminarayana of the School of Economics, University of Hyderabad by a student, Kaluram Palsaniya alias Karan Palsaniya belonging to the ABVP, at the Department of History of the same university. Claiming to be a critique of an examination paper set by Prof. Laxminarayana for the elective option Economics of Education, the intemperate response of the ABVP student in fact targets a specific question on the impact of 'privatization and saffronization’ on higher education. However, there is more to the highly politically motivated reaction of this student. Prof. Laxminarayana had published a critical analysis of the Justice...

 Percent working children, age 14-18, India average By Rajiv Shah The new Annual Status of Education Report (ASER 2017: Beyond Basics), an annual survey carried by the high profile NGO Pratham, has found that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home district Mehsana has a whopping 20.3% children in the age group 14-18, who are not enrolled in either school or college.

By A Representative Top Indian American economist, Prof Arvind Panagariya, who resigned as Prime Minister Narendra Modi's top man in the Government of India’s think-tank Niti Ayog, has controversially said that India does not need Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) type of model, which are not job-intensive.

By Fr Cedric Prakash sj* It was Martin Luther King Jr Day in the United States on January 15. Many would have truly celebrate his memory and the rich legacy, which he has left all. Not many will forget his memorable speech ‘I have a dream’ on 28 August 1963 during that famous ‘March on Washington’. That speech, with those immortal words, is regarded as the defining moment of the civil rights movement. Martin Luther King (MLK) was a committed disciple of Jesus and he never fought shy of that; besides he was greatly influenced by Mahatma Gandhi and his twin doctrine of truth and non-violence. The spirit, the vision and legacy of MLK, belong today to the whole world. If MLK were alive today, he would still be deeply concerned about what is still happening to his people; he would be even more concerned at the ‘state of affairs’ all around him. Given his passion to set things right, he would tell the world that he is still dreaming…and he would loudly and boldly say: I have a dream That one...

By Moin Qazi* A recent report by IndiaSpend states that professional moneylenders, who can charge up to four times more interest than the government’s banking system, hold more rural debt than ever, from 19.6 percent in 2002 to 28.2 percent in 2013. According to a 2017 study by Stanford University’s Center on Global Poverty and Development, farmers take loans from informal sources at high rates of interest to meet the overall shortfall. They use the Kisan Credit Card loans, which are interest-free if repaid in time, to repay the moneylender’s loan. They repay the KCC loan on time to avoid the penalty by using the moneylender’s loan. This vicious and cruel cycle can be broken only if farmers get adequate credit from institutional sources. Almost every farmer in India’s massive rural swathes is tethered, in one way or the other, to the sahukar or the moneylender, the ubiquitous, ravenous loan shark. For centuries, moneylenders have monopolised rural Indian credit markets. Families have l...