While the Gujarat authorities are still in the dark about what may have caused a major fire, which broke out March 25 night, razing to the ground 243 shanties on the banks of a huge city lake, there appears to be little consolation for nearly 1,000 people, who have been rendered homeless because of the fire. Living in sub-human conditions ever since, the administration, they say, hasn’t yet gone beyond carrying out a “survey” of the losses suffered by them.

Figures culled by the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) Sangharsh Morcha, India’s top civil rights group fighting for strict implementation of India’s premier rural guarantee scheme, floated by the UPA government in 2005, have revealed that Gujarat is the worst pay master, highest highest gap among 20 major Indian states between officially declared minimum wages and NREGA wages.

  Former vice-president Hamid Ansari has sharply criticized donor agencies engaged in nongovernmental development work, saying that they seek to "help out" marginalizes communities with their funds, but shy away from naming Muslims as the target group, something, he insisted, needs to change. Speaking at a book release function in Delhi, he said, since large sections of Muslims are poor, they need political as also social outreach.

  Information released by the Government of India's Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA) has suggested that, as on November 30, 2017, as many as 84,694 tribals and other forest dwellers have received the "right" to cultivate forest land under the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006, out of total claims 1,90,056, which comes to 44.56% of disposal of pleas put forward by the state's tribal farmers.

  Data compiled by several of Gujarat's civil society organizations, who have worked for the rehabilitation of victims of 2002 communal riots, in which about 2,000 people, most of them Muslims, died, have revealed that, as of today, as many as 3,380 displaced families -- or about 17,000 persons -- continue to live in 83 rehabilitation colonies in the state.

While a lot is known about fatal accidents caused in Gujarat’s premier shipbreaking yard at Alang because of lack of occupational safety, a yet-to-be-published study “Labour Conditions in Surat Textile Industry", supported by Bonn-based Südwind Institute for Economics and Ecumenism , is all set to create a flutter. It has estimated that, in the last three years, 84 fatal accidents have been reported in registered textile processing units in Surat, in which 114 workers died.

Surlej A top civil society source has revealed that the Cumulative Impact Assessment (CIA) studies of  several big and small hydropower projects for Himachal Pradesh's three major river basins, Sutlej, Chenab and Beas, have either been completed are in the process of completion. However, for most of these, little or no local consultation, as required by law, has been carried out. 

  In a controversial observation, a recent book on human rights lawyering has said that there are greater possibilities of success in legal struggles for the victims of caste-based discrimination than communal violence. The book, titled "Breathing Life into the Constitution: Human Rights Lawyering in India" by Saumya Uma and Arvind Narrain, believes that this is because communal violence is often perpetrated for political gains, to "enjoy" political clout.

A cow protection police station in Alwar, Rajasthan How are the BJP rulers in Rajasthan seeking to compensate the families of those killed by the so-called gau rakshaks or cow vigilantes? According the recipe provided by a senior state official, who admitted that none of those lynched in the name of cow protection have been offered cash compensation, pointing out, their family members would be persuaded to take up "Adopt a Cow" policy of the Rajasthan government.

  Data released by the London-based WaterAid, a high-profile international non-profit organization, which "supports" the Narendra Modi government's programmes like Swachh Bharat Mission and National Rural Drinking Water Programme, show that India is behind all its neighbours, including Pakistan and Bangladesh, in providing “basic access” to clean water.

 In a new move amidst what are widely considered as increasing attempts to "manage" the country's media, by the Narendra Modi government is now thinking of coming up with a regulatory framework, if possible a legislation, to control online media, which has seen a sharp spurt in the country ever since it came to power in May 2014.

One of the most prominent names in modern Indian history, Ramachandra Guha, has qualified the act of  pulling down  VI Lenin's statues in Tripura as the "price of dogma" paid by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI(M), wondering, "What if the CPI(M) had installed statues of Bhagat Singh in Tripura? Would they have been vandalized by the BJP cadre after the CPI(M) was voted out of power in that state?"

Mumbai Coming down heavily on the way Indian cities are managed, a new report has said that not only are they bogged with a huge staff vacancy – on an average 35% in the 23 metropolitan centres surveyed – what is worse, those who are responsible for running them, such as municipal commissioners, have little or no experience in urban management.

  A recent report by international NGO Greenpeace has said that, out of 280 Indian cities for which it obtained data to assess air pollution levels, as many as 228, or 80%, are found to be not complying with the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), as prescribed by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).

The original photograph In an unprecedented move, the Delhi High Court on March 16, 2018 (Court 10, Item 22, PIL 7003 of 2014), has asked the CBI for relevant records of the steps taken to investigate into the photo morphing of India's first education minister, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, allegedly by Manipur governor Najma Heptulla, in a coffee table book, “Journey of A Legend: Maulana Abul Kalam Azad: 1888-1958”, authored by her.

  In a sharp admission, the World Bank in its new report, "India Development Update", released this month, has said it is unable to solve a crucial "puzzle". Providing a graphic picture of 10 different indicators of growth, including the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), it says, the question that puzzles is, "why" India's reforms "have not yet succeeded in reversing the slowdown in investment, exports, and certain other aspects of the economy."

  While the kin of 11 workers, who died due to suffocation cleaning up gutters in Ahmedabad received compensation of Rs 10 lakh each on Saturday, official communication in possession of Counterview suggests, this wouldn't have happened but for the threat issued by the city's manual scavengers, led by the widows of the dead, to sit on fast unto death to implement a four-year-old Supreme Court order.

  For the first time since 2005, the Central Information Commission (CIC) has reported a 6% dip in the number of Right to Information (RTI) applications received by the Central Government. A preliminary review of the statistics in the Annual Report of the CIC for the year 2016-17 has revealed that the number of RTI applications has come down from 9.76 lakh in 2015-16 to 9.17 lakh.

  In a surprise U-turn, Gujarat's well-known Dalit face Jignesh Mevani has said, a "wilfull campaign" is on against him to the effect that he is against Muslim organizations, going so far as to threaten them with boycott. Asserting that he "cannot hope to oppose" organizations like Islamic Relief Committee, Jamiat-e-Ulema-Hind, Jamaat-e-Islami and others, he has said in a video, these have "contributed" in a major way to help and rehabilitate those who remain displaced after the 2002 Gujarat riots.

  By Our Representative The Right to Food Campaign (RtFC), quoting official data, has said that in 2017, in Rajasthan alone, around 33 lakh families were unable to access their Public Distribution System (PDS) ration entitlement each month due to the linkage of the Public Distribution System (PDS) with Aadhaar. Similarly, it said, in Jharkhand, 25 lakh families were deprived of their grain entitlements on a monthly basis.

The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, a Delhi-based advocacy group, in a new report has said, data accessed from 19 Information Commissions (ICs) show that there are 1.93 lakh pending second appeal and complaint cases of Right to Information (RTI), up from 1.10 lakh cases in 2015. Top five ICs accounting for 77% of the overall pendency are Maharashtra (41,537), Uttar Pradesh (40,248), Karnataka (29,291), Central Information Commission (23,989) and Kerala (14,253 cases).

Nanjibhai Sondarva With the gruesome  murder   of yet another Right to Information ((RTI) activist, Nanjibhai Sondarva (35), on March 9, 2018, a resident of Manekwada village in Kotada Sangani taluka of Rajkot district, the number of citizens and activists hacked to death for using RTI in Gujarat has risen to 11. Bringing this to light, well-known RTI activist of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, Venkatesh Nayak, has said, this is over and above at least 16 cases of assault on other RTI activists in Gujarat reported by various media sources since October 2005 when the RTI Act was operationalised.

Well-known Dalit rights expert Anand Teltumbde is all set to trigger hornet's nest by insisting on the need to "revamp" the reservation policy for scheduled castes (SCs), scheduled tribes (STs), and other backward classes (OBCs), allegedly meant to "empower" the underprivileged sections in India. Teltumbde wants reservation to be "delinked from castes", saying, this should be done by "creating a separate schedule."

  A meeting organised by the Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan on the occasion of the International Women’s Day revealed how even in Mumbai, known for being the country’s most women friendly city, women’s safety and well-being depends on the area in the city they occupy and the kind of material structures they live in. Testimonies at the meeting, attended by around 100 women from several slum pockets in Mumbai, revealed that lives of women in these settlements are several times worse off than that of their counterparts from the upper classes who live in regularised buildings.

Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Jitendra Singh has admitted in the Rajya Sabha that the Government of India has “no mechanism” to monitor compliance with its own transparency directive, requiring each ministry and department to submit monthly report to the Cabinet Secretariat on proactive disclosures to be made under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005.

Culture minister Sharma A Government of India committee, set up by Union culture minister Mahesh Sharma to "collect" archeological and DNA evidence to "prove" that Hindus are direct descended from India's first inhabitants and they did not migrate from elsewhere about 3,000-4,000 years ago, is all set to present its "final report" to Parliament.

In an unusual move, in 2013, tribal residents of Mendha Lekha, a tribal village in Gandchiroli district of Maharashtra, decided to transfer the ownership of their farmlands, about 200 hectares, to the Gram Sabha. This, according to Pallav Das, one of the authors of an article published in the recently-published book “Alternative Futures: India Unshackled” (edited by Ashish Kothari and KJ Joy), happened because villagers considered “land as a community resource and not as individual property.” Calling it a “revolutionary concept of the ‘commons’ (air, water, forests…)”, Das says, the villagers, belonging to the Adivasi Gond community, have not stopped there. They have, in fact, gone a step further by organizing “cultivable land into collective ownership”, adding, “This ensures that the land stays in the ownership of the village and individual owners are not tempted to sell land to land sharks operating in the adivasis region.” He quotes community leader Devaji Tofa as sa...

Taking strong objection to the Right to Education (RTE) Act, a new book, seeking to provide a future vision of different social sectors, carries a strongly-worded paper which says that the much-celebrated law has not only failed to provide universal access to free education. Worse, it argues, within five years of its implementation, the legislation is being effectively used to "weaken the public education system further."

Cover of the Navsarjan report The Gujarat government may have  refused  to table the Cept University’s “alternative study on education” titled, “Impact of Caste Discrimination and Distinctions on Equal Opportunities: A Study of Gujarat”, in the state assembly, giving the technical explanation that it has not been prepared by a commission appointed by the state government. However, ironically, following several Right to Information (RTI) pleas, top Dalit rights NGO Navsarjan Trust forced the state government in 2013 to part with the Cept study, which runs into 300 pages.

Modi off seaplane in Narmada-filled Sabarmati river, Ahmedabad Top sources in the Gujarat government have confided to Counterview that scarcity of water flowing from Narmada dam is going to be a "permanent feature". Pointing out that this has been "internally agreed upon" at the highest level, a senior official, refusing to be named, said, if till recently Gujarat was at ease, and was using Narmada waters "indiscriminately", as there were no dams in Madhya Pradesh, "things have changed."

  The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), which India’s leading business information consultancy firm and think tank, has estimated that the unemployment rate in the country has reached 7.09 per cent in the week ending February 25, 2018, the highest in the last 71 weeks. Exactly a year ago, on February 26, 2017, the country’s unemployment rate was just 4.35 per cent.

  In a little known development, Gujarat's Dalit face Jignesh Mevani has threatened Muslim organizations, which have claimed to have "resettled" thousands of 2002 riot victims, that he would boycott meetings called by them anywhere in India. Mevani's threat comes close on the heels of  complaints  by tens of riot victims that they are sought to be evicted by the very same organizations that had allowed them to settle down on their land in the aftermath of the riots.