Minority rights leaders detained in Ahmedabad, had planned protest against Modi

By A Representative
Gujarat civil society organisation Minority Coordination Committee (MCC) leaders -- Mujahid Nafees, Shakeel Shaikh, Danish Khan, and others -- who had planned a protest against Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the VS Hospital were detained on Thursday afternoon. They had wished to highlight the alleged failure of the Gujarat government to implement "development needs" of minorities, who form 11.5% of the state's population.
An MCC communique said, the Gujarat authorities were "so scared" of the protest against the Prime Minister, whom MCC members had planned to give a memorandum of demands, that the leaders were picked up for detention from their residence at 3 pm, an hour before the protest was planned. Insisting that the Prime Minister "cannot suppress our voice", MCC claimd, "Our demands are all in consonance with international treaties signed by the Government of India."
Meant for the development and protection of minorities, the main demands are: Creation of a separate minority welfare department, separate budgetary allocation for the development of minorities, setting up of a minority commission as a statutory body, opening government schools up to class 12th in minority dominated areas, recognition of madarsa degree as equivalent to the Gujarat Board, special economic package for the upliftment of minorities, and a government policy for the rehabilitation of people displaced by communal violence.

Right to walk, right to livelihood: Clearing footpaths 'can't mean' clearing out the urban poor

By Aseem Mishra* India’s cities are locked in a quiet but intensifying struggle over one of their most contested public spaces: the footpath. For pedestrians, a footpath is basic infrastructure—a strip of ground that should allow people to move safely, independently and with dignity. For millions of informal workers, the same stretch of pavement is a workplace, a source of daily income and often the difference between survival and destitution.

Ample evidence of child labour in South Gujarat's cash rich sugarcane belt: Study

By Rajiv Shah A recent German government-funded study , undertaken jointly by the NGO Prayas Centre for Labour Research and Action and the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, which mainly deals examines the working conditions of migrant workers in the cash-rich sugarcane zone of South Gujarat, has gone a long way to suggest large scale prevalence of child labour during the harvesting season.

Women lawyers petition Supreme Court, seek reconsideration of Aug 4 order on bar council co-option

By A Representative A group of women advocates who stood sixth and seventh among female candidates in the recent Bar Council elections have filed a petition before the Supreme Court, seeking a recall and reconsideration of the Court’s August 4 order determining the mechanism for co-opting women into State Bar Councils.

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