A new book by two veteran academics, “Gujarat, Cradle and Harbinger of Identity Politics: India’s Injurious Frame of Communalism”, perhaps for the first time traces the roots of inter-religious strife leading to Hindutva’s political hold today, pointing towards the role played by so-called upper castes in a State known during the Independence movement for its composite culture -- though not without strong undercurrent of majoritarianism.

Percent of initial NREGA budget spent in clearing past dues A civil rights group, Peoples' Action for Employment Guarantee (PAEG), in a report ahead of the budget for financial year (FY) 2022-23 has said that though the destructive impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on health has impacted the poor most, and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) has acted as a crucial shock absorber for the rural poor, the implementation of the Act is dogged by poor budgetary allocation and delayed wage payments.

Dr Diwan Singh Kalepani museum off Chandigarh Did Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose ignore the massacre carried out by the Japanese army in Andaman and Nicobar islands during the Second World War? It would seem so, if one goes by the account of Mohinder Singh Dhillon, who authored a book in memory of his father, 'A Titan in the Andamans, Dr Diwan Singh Kalepani'. Dr Diwan Singh was tortured to death by the Japanese soldiers in the cellular jail in Andaman in 1944. While the  book  does not seem to be  available , Dhillon, based on his direct interaction with people in Port Blair in late 1960s, described in an  article  he wrote in “The Tribune” in 1998 on what happened to his father, who was a doctor Netaji’s Azad Hind Fauj, and president of the Indian Independence League in Port Blair, as also 2,000 other like-minded persons, even as graphically describing the reign of terror by the Japanese soldiers.  A former professor in Ludhiana, Dhillon was appointed founder...

A Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (SSNC)-sponsored study, carried out by the advocacy group Consumer Unity & Trust Society (CUTS) India, seeking to analyse the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) No 12, Responsible Consumption and Production (RCP), has regretted, it is "very unlikely" India will achieve any of the targets of SDG 12 by 2030 "unless some serious measures are taken by the government to reverse the present trend." Carrying out the study from the "consumer’s perspective", it seeks to analyse the current scenario at the national level, including the role of ecolabels, impact of the pandemic etc., with in-depth study in five states -- Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Kerala and Himachal Pradesh -- through one-to-one interviews, focus group discussions, qualitative analysis, documentation of successful case studies etc. Titled "Sustainable Consumption and Production: A Consumer Perspective...

  Findings by two Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, scholars, Sampurna Kundu and Prof Sanghmitra Sheel Acharya, has revealed that despite the efforts of the Reproductive and Child Health Services, that provided free or nominal cost public health services, the average out of pocket expenditure (OOPE) per delivery in public health facilities has increased for many states.

Ahead of his hearing on January 21, 2022,  CIVICUS , a global civil society alliance with more than 10,000 members worldwide, has called upon the Government of India to “immediately and unconditionally” release human rights defender Khurram Parvez. “The judicial harassment he is facing highlights the repressive environment for activists and critics in Indian administered Jammu and Kashmir”, it said in a statement.

Will Gujarat also see demands to replace mosques and dargahs with Hindu temples? It would seem so, if a new fact-finding team conclusion is any indication. Apprehending the “danger” of communal conflagration, it has cited the claim on a 15th century dargah was originally a Hindu temple – allegedly quite on line with what has been happening in UP following the Supreme Court verdict on Babri Mosque.

CSJ volunteers talking to fisherwomen A Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) note on the Gujarat government’s compensation package to the victims of the devastating Tauktae cyclone, which hit the coastal belt of Saurashtra's Amerli, Rajula, Una, and Gir-Somnath districts in May 2021, has said, the relief offered was so terribly inadequate that many of the fisherfolk were not able to fish for the rest of the year.

There is now well-researched proof, if it can be called that, indicating that the Government of India may have fudged data to show lower Covid death rate. A new paper, published in “Science”, has said that while officially the Government of India’s Covid-related death estimates as of January 1, 2022 – 345 per million population – are one-seventh of the US death rate, the actual analysis of crude death rate in India suggests, this may be a gross underestimation.  In fact, massive “misclassification of deaths” by showing Covid deaths as non-Covid, suggest the paper, “Covid mortality in India: National survey data and health facility deaths”, authored 11 scholars, led by Prabhat Jha of the University of Toronto, Canada, and consisting of an Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) faculty Chinmay Tumbe.  The authors of the paper estimate that India’s actual Covid-related deaths were in the range of about 2,300 to 2,500 per million, or approximately 6- to ...

  Will the World Bank’s proposed loan to the tune of 500 million dollars to the Government of Gujarat, under an education project called Gujarat Outcomes for Accelerated Learning (GOAL) programme, lead to the neglect of 32,000 primary schools across the State? It would seem to if a consultation, organised by the advocacy group Right to Education (RTE), Forum, Gujarat, is any indication.

  Scanning through news stories on Omicron, the new Covonavirus variant said to have been found in South Africa, I came across an interesting story,  published  in the New York-based network, CBS News. According to this story, published a couple of days ago, “The Omicron variant made up around 95.4% of new Covid-19 cases in the US last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.” It added, “Only two regions of the US -- New England and part of the Midwest -- have yet to reach 90% locally. The Delta variant, which was dominant up until a few weeks ago, makes up nearly all the other cases.” I got interested in this news item after I found that in my state, Gujarat, they were reporting very few Omicron cases, if one goes by the data fished out by the State government. Last weekend, on Saturday, for instance, Gujarat reported just about 23 new Omicron cases, which is said to have taken the tally of the “highly infectious” variant to 136, the State health depart...