Non-BJP-ruled states 'outperform' BJP states in justice delivery: Tata Trusts report

By A Representative
The second edition of the India Justice Report (IJR), a study undertaken jointly by Tata Trusts in collaboration with several advocacy groups, has said that five non-BJP-ruled states – Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Punjab and Kerala – are the top performers compared those ruled by BJP, including “model” Gujarat, which ranks No 6th in a ranking of 18 large states for the delivery of justice to people.
Prepared in collaboration with advocacy groups Centre for Social Justice, Common Cause, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, DAKSH, TISS-Prayas, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy and How India Lives, the report also finds that while three other non-BJP states – Chhatisgarh, Jharkhand and Rajasthan – have considerably improved their justice delivery ranking visa-v-vis their 2019 ranking, the worst perform is the Yogi Adityanath-ruled Uttar Pradesh.
Basing itself plethora of data, but with without specific examples which may have led to improvement or otherwise of rankings, the report finds that three BJP-ruled states states – Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Haryana – have fallen badly their rankings. On other hand, only two non-BJP state have suffered setback in their rankings, West Bengal and Odisha. The first edition of IJR, which for the first time ranked states for justice delivery, was released a year ago.
Claiming to bring together “otherwise siloed statistics from authoritative government sources on the four pillars of justice delivery, police, judiciary, prisons and legal aid” for ranking Indian states, the report analyses each pillar through the “prism of budgets, human resources, personnel workload, diversity and infrastructure against the states’ own declared standards and benchmarks.”

Speaking at the release of the report in Delhi on Thursday, top Government of India policy-making body Niti Aayog vice-chairman Dr Rajiv Kumar, even as commending the Tata Trust-NGO team for coming up with with the report and claiming that NITI Aayog has been “striving to foster wider discussions” for improving justice delivery system, hoped that it would “help states identify areas of immediate improvement.”

Shloka Nath, head, policy and advocacy, Tata Trusts, however, regretted, “The justice system in India is overburdened and stressed making it difficult for most people to access justice services. The report demystifies the system as a whole through statistics across the four pillars.” She hoped the report would “foster a more informed discourse” and serve as a “tool for policymakers and other stakeholders to identify areas of quick repair."
Maja Daruwala, chief editor, IJR 2019, said, “The justice system has been neglected for too long. It entered the pandemic era with co-morbidities – underfunding, large vacancies, poor infrastructure and inadequately trained personnel at all levels. It must be designated as an essential service and be equipped as a first responder to provide the public with its services in every situation especially emergencies and certainly in the on-going pandemic.”

Comments

Urgent need to study cause of large number of natural deaths in Gulf countries

By Venkatesh Nayak* According to data tabled in Parliament in April 2018, there are 87.76 lakh (8.77 million) Indians in six Gulf countries, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While replying to an Unstarred Question (#6091) raised in the Lok Sabha, the Union Minister of State for External Affairs said, during the first half of this financial year alone (between April-September 2018), blue-collared Indian workers in these countries had remitted USD 33.47 Billion back home. Not much is known about the human cost of such earnings which swell up the country’s forex reserves quietly. My recent RTI intervention and research of proceedings in Parliament has revealed that between 2012 and mid-2018 more than 24,570 Indian Workers died in these Gulf countries. This works out to an average of more than 10 deaths per day. For every US$ 1 Billion they remitted to India during the same period there were at least 117 deaths of Indian Workers in Gulf ...

A comrade in culture and controversy: Yao Wenyuan’s revolutionary legacy

By Harsh Thakor* This year marks two important anniversaries in Chinese revolutionary history—the 20th death anniversary of Yao Wenyuan, and the 50th anniversary of his seminal essay "On the Social Basis of the Lin Biao Anti-Party Clique". These milestones invite reflection on the man whose pen ignited the first sparks of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and whose sharp ideological interventions left an indelible imprint on the political and cultural landscape of socialist China.

India's health workers have no legal right for their protection, regrets NGO network

Counterview Desk In a letter to Union labour and employment minister Santosh Gangwar, the civil rights group Occupational and Environmental Health Network of India (OEHNI), writing against the backdrop of strike by Bhabha hospital heath care workers, has insisted that they should be given “clear legal right for their protection”.

Uttarakhand tunnel disaster: 'Question mark' on rescue plan, appraisal, construction

By Bhim Singh Rawat* As many as 40 workers were trapped inside Barkot-Silkyara tunnel in Uttarkashi after a portion of the 4.5 km long, supposedly completed portion of the tunnel, collapsed early morning on Sunday, Nov 12, 2023. The incident has once again raised several questions over negligence in planning, appraisal and construction, absence of emergency rescue plan, violations of labour laws and environmental norms resulting in this avoidable accident.

History, culture and literature of Fatehpur, UP, from where Maulana Hasrat Mohani hailed

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Maulana Hasrat Mohani was a member of the Constituent Assembly and an extremely important leader of our freedom movement. Born in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh, Hasrat Mohani's relationship with nearby district of Fatehpur is interesting and not explored much by biographers and historians. Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri has written a book on Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Fatehpur. The book is in Urdu. He has just come out with another important book, 'Hindi kee Pratham Rachna: Chandayan' authored by Mulla Daud Dalmai.' During my recent visit to Fatehpur town, I had an opportunity to meet Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri and recorded a conversation with him on issues of history, culture and literature of Fatehpur. Sharing this conversation here with you. Kindly click this link. --- *Human rights defender. Facebook https://www.facebook.com/vbrawat , X @freetohumanity, Skype @vbrawat

Job opportunities decreasing, wages remain low: Delhi construction workers' plight

By Bharat Dogra* It was about 32 years back that a hut colony in posh Prashant Vihar area of Delhi was demolished. It was after a great struggle that the people evicted from here could get alternative plots that were not too far away from their earlier colony. Nirmana, an organization of construction workers, played an important role in helping the evicted people to get this alternative land. At that time it was a big relief to get this alternative land, even though the plots given to them were very small ones of 10X8 feet size. The people worked hard to construct new houses, often constructing two floors so that the family could be accommodated in the small plots. However a recent visit revealed that people are rather disheartened now by a number of adverse factors. They have not been given the proper allotment papers yet. There is still no sewer system here. They have to use public toilets constructed some distance away which can sometimes be quite messy. There is still no...

Women's rights leaders told to negotiate with Muslimness, as India's donor agencies shun the word Muslim

By A Representative 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.

Gujarat Bitcoin scam worth Rs 5,000 crore "linked" with BJP leaders: Need for Supreme Court monitored probe

By Shaktisinh Gohil* BJP hit a jackpot in the form of demonetisation, which it used as an alibi to convert black money into white in Gujarat. Even as party scrambles for answers of how the Ahmedabad District Cooperative Bank (ADCB), whose director is BJP president Amit Shah, received old currency worth Rs 745.58 crore in just five days, and how Rs 3118.51 crore was deposited in 11 district cooperative banks linked with Gujarat BJP leaders, a new mega Bitcoin scam, worth more than Rs 5,000 crore has been unraveled.

Warning bells for India: Tribal exploitation by powerful corporate interests may turn into international issue

By Ashok Shrimali* Warning bells are ringing for India. Even as news drops in from Odisha that Adivasi villages, one after another, are rejecting the top UK-based MNC Vedanta's plea for mining, a recent move by two senior scholars Felix Padel and Samarendra Das suggests the way tribals are being exploited in India by powerful international and national business interests may become an international issue. In fact, one has only to count days when things may be taken up at the United Nations level, with India being pushed to the corner. Padel, it may be recalled, is a major British authority on indigenous peoples across the world, with several scholarly books to his credit.

Counterview

Search This Blog