The rural jobs advocacy group, People's Action for Employment Guarantee (PAEG), has taken strong exception to the Government of India reducing the total budget for implementing schemes under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) in the FY 2021-22, which “is 34% less than the budget for the previous year, even though the effects of Covid-19 have not abated.”

A new report by non-profit LibTech India, which comprises of engineers, activists and social scientists as its members, has objected to what inordinate delay in wage payments in the rural jobs scheme under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) to the rural workers belonging to the non-scheduled caste (SC) and non-scheduled tribe (ST) categories.

Neighbours pouring water to "purify" street to the hotel Even as the Gujarat High Court has adjourned to November 17 the hearing in a dispute between the owners of a new hotel in Anand and their neighbour, a prominent oncologist, over alleged illegal construction, the advocacy group National Confederation of Human Rights Organisations (NCHRO) has taken strong exception to the case pertaining to Hotel Blue Ivy -- co-owned by Hindu and Muslim partners – taking a communal turn.

Several well-known South Asian  activists and public figures  of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Maldives have expressed “deep distress” by the spate of violence and killings in Bangladesh on the occasion of Durga Puja and Vijayadashami. “Attacks on minorities are a sign of injustice and a matter of shame for any society and bring a bad name to the Government”, they said in a joint statement.

By Our Representative  Marking the 16th anniversary of the implementation of the top transparency law Right to Information (RTI) Act, the civil rights organisation, the Satark Nagrik Sangathan (SNS) has said in a comprehensive report on the functioning of the information commissions across India that while three out of 29 information commissions (ICs) – in Jharkhand, Tripura and Meghalaya – are “completely defunct” as no new commissioners have been appointed upon the incumbents demitting office, three other commissions, Nagaland, Manipur and Telangana, are headless.

A high profile report prepared by the influential  American Bar Association  (ABA)  Center for Human Rights , taking note of the fact that “in the 70-year history of the Indian Republic, only six Dalit judges have been appointed to the Supreme Court”, has taken strong exception to what it calls “lack of representation of Dalits” in the legal profession and the judiciary.

In a major show of strength across India, feminists, people's movements, students, trade unionists, farm workers, fisher people, members of Adivasi, Dalit and Muslim communities, civil liberty activists, journalists, and academics joined events across India, expressed their solidarity with Gulfisha Fatima, arrested on April 9, 2020.

A Hindu Jagaran Manch campaign against love jihad A report prepared by a social activists’ fact finding team on the 'claimed first love jihad case' of Gujarat, registered in Vadodara, the state’s cultural capital, two days after (June 17) the Gujarat’s Freedom of Religion Act (June 15) came into force, has claimed that the Dalit girl, who got married to a Muslim boy “may have been a victim of domestic violence but she was not a victim of forced marriage.”

  In a surprise admission, the Ahmedabad Municipal Commission (AMC) has said that “ill-treated or untreated or partly treated” industrial waste from “improperly working” effluent treatment plants (ETPs) is being “discharged into Sabarmati directly”. It added in an affidavit filed in the Gujarat High Court (HC) that “completely untreated industrial discharge” is also being “illegally discharged into the sewerage network” designed for household sewage.