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Showing posts from December, 2020

Ex-IAS Atanu Chakraborty and a tale of two different Gujarat vision documents

The likely appointment of Atanu Chakraborty as HDFC Bank chairman interested me for several reasons, but above all because I have interacted with him closely during my more than 15 year stint in Gandhinagar for the “Times of India”. One of the few decent Gujarat cadre bureaucrats, Chakraborty, belonging to the 1985 IAS batch, at least till I covered Sachivalaya was surely above controversies. He loved to remain faceless, never desired publicity, was professional to the core, and never indulged in loose talk. When he neared retirement, which happened in April 2020, first there were rumours in Sachivalaya that he would be appointed SEBI chairman, and then there was talk he would be chairman (or was it CEO?) of Gujarat International Finance Tec (GIFT) City (a dream project of Narendra Modi as Gujarat chief minister, which as Prime Minister Modi wants to promote, come what may). But, for some strange reasons, and I don’t know why, none of this happened, despite the fact that he has been c...

Farm laws 'precursor' to free trade deal envisaged by US corporates to allow GMO

  Did the Government of India come up with the three farm laws, first rushed by promulgating ordinances in June 2020, to not just open the country’s agricultural sector to the corporate sector but also as a precursor to comply with the requirements of the United States for a Free Trade Agreement (FTA), as envisaged by the outgoing US president Donald Trump?

J&K, Muslims: Human rights violations in India 'downplayed' in Australian report

Amnesty International, which  shut down  its India branch after a recent move by the Enforcement Directorate to freeze the organisation’s accounts charging it with “violation” of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) and alleging money laundering, has sharply criticised the Australian government for “dangerously” downplaying human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) in a recent report.

No follow-up action on Bhavnagar lignite mining disaster, complain environmentalists

Land rise because of lignite mining (left), district officials' visit (right) Gujarat’s well-known environmentalists Rohit Prajapati and Krishnakant of the Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti (PSS), in a letter to the Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Government of India and the Gujarat chief secretary and other concerned officials, have regretted that a month after their complaint about a disaster at the Badi-Hoidad lignite mining site, Bhavnagar district, on November 16, authorities have taken no follow-up action to ascertain the reasons and take remedial steps.

Central Vista project: Environmentalists call fresh GoI proposal arbitrary, piecemeal

A uniform letter, sent by a large number of environmental experts from across India to T Haque, chairman, Experts Assessment Commission (EAC) under the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Government of India (GoI), has expressed shock over the submission of a fresh revised proposal on the Central Vista project in Delhi for approval, calling the move “arbitrarily”.

No respite from industrial effluents 'dumped' in Central Gujarat river: Probe sought

  Alleging that untreated industrial effluents continue to be dumped in Mahisagar, one of the major rivers of Central Gujarat, well-known environmentalists Rohit Prajapati and Krishnakant of the Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti (PSS) in a letter to senior officials of the state government have said, their spot inquiry suggests things have not changed despite the fact that they had brought the matter before the authorities in a letter dated November 14 with concrete evidence.

Legal notice to CM Rupani, DGP: Why are Gujarat farmers being 'illegally' detained?

  Taking strong exception to the Gujarat government’s alleged preventive detentions of a large number of farmer leaders this week in order to stop them from holding any protests in support of the Bharat bandh on December 8, a legal notice served on chief minister Vijay Rupani, the home minister, the chief secretary, the director general of police, and other senior police officials has sought know under which law these “illegal” actions were being carried out.

Tribal women of Gujarat's Devgadh Baria speak up for their rights at public hearing

Are the tribal women of Devgadh Baria, an eastern-most hilly taluka of Gujarat, coming out of their long-standing fear and beginning to speak up? It would seem so, if a public hearing organised by civil rights organizations Anandi and Mahiti Adhikar Gujarat Pahel (MAGP) next to the office of the sub-divisional magistrate (DSM) on December 10, International Human Rights Day, was any indication.

25% households in UP, 19% in Odisha, 17% in Bihar, MP didn't get NREGA job: Tracker

  By Our Representative A National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) tracker by a civil society network, Peoples’ Action for Employment Guarantee (PAEG), has found that where was a surge in NREGA work demand during the pandemic, with the total job cards demand this year reaching 7.5 crore and the total active job cards 9.02 crore.

Melbourne-based rights activist in search of Indian soldier gone missing in Pakistan

Captain Sanjit  Pushkar Raj, who at some point was national general secretary of India’s premier human rights organisation, People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), currently settled in Melbourne, sent an email to me seeking my mobile number. I promptly sent it across, and within no time, he phoned me up.  One who has been writing for Counterview.in now and on about national issues, Raj’s concern this time was Captain Sanjit Bhattacharya’s fate, whom he called “missing”, even though at least two of the documents he shared on WhatsApp – one of them signed by President Pranab Mukherjee – sought to “presume” he had passed away in 2004. On duty along the Rann of Kutch, Bhattacharya – a Raj colleague at the SS-54 Officers Training Academy at the then Madras (as his article  said) – went missing on the night of April 19-20, 1997 following a sudden flood, when, ,because of an unpredictable tide, the Rann turned treacherous, in which the Captain was possibly swept to the other...

Hunger Watch: 62% of households report incomes lower than pre-lockdown period

  A study carried out by the Right to Food Campaign and the Center for Equity Studies in 11 states has found that even five months after the lockdown has ended, a large number of households report lower levels of income (62%), reduced intake of cereals (53%), pulses (64%), vegetables (73%) and eggs/non-vegetarian items (71%), worsened nutritional quality (71%) and an increased need to borrow money to buy food (45%).

South Asia dogged with poor health facilities, erosion of democratic rights: Report

A report by multinational advocacy groups, Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA), Bangkok, and South Asia Alliance for Poverty Eradication (SAAPE), Kathmandu, “Human Rights in South Asia in Times of Pandemic”, has expressed concern that lack of basic health infrastructure has been one of the main reasons why the countries in the region are unable to fight Covid-19 crisis effectively.

At least 193 died due to 'illegal, excessive' river sand mining since Jan 2019: SANDRP

A recent compilation has revealed that at least 193 people have been killed due to illegal sand mining operations across across India since January 2019. Compiled in a detailed  report  by Bhim Singh Rawat of the civil rights organization South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP), it says that the highest number of people, 95 were killed in North India (49%) followed by 42 in West and Central India, 41 in East India and 15 in South India.

Maharashtra govt blamed for not providing basic facilities to Stan Swamy in Taloja jail

A well-known Jharkhand civil rights organization has blamed the Maharashtra government for failing to ensure “basic rights” 83-year-old Father Stan Swamy, a state human rights activist, currently lodged as an undertrial in Mumbai’s Taloja jail. In a letter to state chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, it regretted, the jail authorities only provided with a sipper to the human rights activist, suffering from Parkinson’s “on November 29 after widespread condemnation from all quarters.”

Gujarat Dalit rights leader identifies dumped plastic extracted from dead cows' womb

Natubhai Parmar showing plastic extracted from a dead cow's womb After a long, long time, Natubhai Parmar, a grassroots Dalit rights activist based in Surendranagar in Gujarat, rang me up. I was pleasantly surprised. I have known him for the last about eight years. Though we used to talk on phone, and met once in a while in Ahmedabad to do stories on Dalit issues, it was only after the famous Una flogging incident in 2016 that I found how deep his understanding is on Dalit issues.  The Una incident – in which four Dalit boys were tied to chain attached with an SUV and were pushed towards the local police station on the main road, even as cow vigilantes flogged them mercilessly all the way – led to a huge turmoil among Gujarat Dalits. Dalit rights leader Jignesh Mevani, currently independent MLA, became famous following an Ahmedabad to Una march he organised to protest against the flogging. As the cow vigilantes flogged the four Dalit boys on suspicion of cow slaughter, many Dalit...

Australian High Commissioner's visit to RSS HQ: Greens Senator seeks resignation

Australian Greens Senator Janet Rice, speaking in Parliament, has demanded the resignation of the country’s High Commissioner in India, Barry O'Farrell, for visiting the RSS headquarters in Nagpur on November 15, alleging, the saffron organization is “fascist”, and has “openly” declared admiration for “Adolf Hitler and the genocide of Nazi regime.”

Hunger, food insecurity galore among Delhi's working poor, public hearing told

  A public hearing, organised by the Delhi Rozi Roti Adhikar Abhiyan (DRRAA) to highlight the crisis of food insecurity and hunger among the working poor and marginalised communities in India’s national capital, highlighted how economic distress caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, coupled with the inadequate response by the government, resulted in people being unable to find adequate work to be able to afford food.