Counterview

By A Representative   Women engaged in manual scavenging gathered in the national capital to counter the Union government’s official stance in Parliament that the practice has been eradicated in India.

By Aditya Sharma*  Dr P K Gupta's recent article ( The 'Dr' debate masks a larger crisis in allied-health education , Counterview , 1 August 2026)  on the use of the "Dr" prefix by physiotherapists reads, on its surface, as a balanced take on a genuinely difficult question. But a closer look shows that it revives a set of arguments that were put before Parliament during the drafting of the National Commission for Allied and Healthcare Professions Act, 2021 (NCAHP Act) — and that Parliament's own Standing Committee considered and rejected. This response draws on the Committee's 117th Report and the text of the Act itself to lay out why.

By A Representative   A group of students and youth activists in Ahmedabad has issued a set of demands to the authorities after alleging that a peaceful reading session was violently disrupted by members of the Bajrang Dal in broad daylight on August 27, with police allegedly standing by and later diluting the First Information Report to protect the accused. 

By Nava Thakuria*  Developments in northeastern India have brought the issue of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) back into public discussion, with developments in Manipur and Assam placing questions of migration, citizenship verification and demographic change at the centre of the debate.

By Kumar Krishnan*  The demand to dismantle the Farakka Barrage has returned to the centre of a wider debate over the future of the Ganga, but activists gathered in Bhagalpur over the weekend made an important distinction: removing Farakka, they said, should not mean ending the sharing of Ganga waters with Bangladesh. The two-day national public dialogue, organised by the Ganga Mukti Andolan on August 29 and 30 in Bhagalpur, brought together river activists, environmentalists, social workers and representatives of river-dependent communities from Bihar, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand. Several senior activists also joined the discussions online.

By A Representative   The People's Union for Civil Liberties, Gujarat , and the Student and Youth Collective Ahmedabad have condemned a mob assault on a peaceful reading assembly in Vastrapur , calling it a premeditated, communally motivated hate crime. On the evening of August 27, 2026 , about 40 to 50 students and citizens gathered at AUDA Garden for a silent reading session organized by the Student and Youth Collective and Gujarat Reads Anyway. 

By Pramod Ranjan*  On August 19, 2026, violence erupted in Shillong, Meghalaya, during a black-flag bike rally organised by the Khasi Students' Union (KSU). Statues of Swami Vivekananda and Subhas Chandra Bose were damaged in the course of the protests. Bose's statue was toppled, while the glass enclosure around Vivekananda's statue was smashed. Vehicles were vandalised, and there were allegations that people were attacked.

By Maisa Bascuas   On 20 August, during the 23rd edition of the Council of the Americas in Buenos Aires, Javier Milei concluded his speech to the business elite by blaming the 'little green scarves' and voluntary termination of pregnancy (VTP) for the declining birth rate, the slowdown in economic growth, and the crisis in the pension system. The tactic is politically effective: it reduces a global demographic trend to a local scapegoat.

By Mohd. Ziyaullah Khan   Ever since Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi spoke to female students in Maharashtra on August 22, 2026, urging them to “smash patriarchy” and reject the “Manusmriti mindset,” a storm has erupted in BJP circles. His assertion that women belong to themselves—not to their fathers, husbands or sons—has provoked a predictable rush among BJP supporters to defend the Manusmriti. This should surprise no one. For years, the politics of cultural nationalism has selectively elevated ancient texts as symbols of civilisational pride. But reverence becomes dangerous when it collides with the foundational values of a modern democracy.

By Ram Puniyani*  In pre-colonial India, Hindu society was broadly governed by the Manusmriti, where caste and gender hierarchy formed the core of its values. During the colonial period, as education, transport and modern administration took root, the seeds of democracy began to sprout. These changes were oriented around the emerging concept of secular nationalism. The various components of this transformation included the struggle for workers' rights, the expansion of education, the empowerment of Dalits and women, and the concept of equal citizenship for all, irrespective of religion, caste, language or gender. 

By Bharat Dogra   Activist, teacher, and lawyer—Pradip Prabhu contributed immensely in his many-sided roles, with the one unifying thread being his deep commitment to justice. It is rare to witness such a combination: someone who went to jail and risked his life in struggles for various oppressed communities, particularly for the rights of tribal people, while also serving with distinction on several government committees; teaching students at top institutes and training senior officers, while at the same time fasting for many days to press for legislation protecting tribal rights.

By A Representative   The Bihar unit of the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) convened a public hearing at the Indian Medical Association (IMA) Hall, Gandhi Maidan, where victims of police violence testified to a pattern of systematic repression against student protesters that panelists characterized not merely as police brutality, but as "state brutality."

By Kumar Krishnan*  The question of Tibet has once again entered international discourse, raising difficult questions about human rights, religious freedom, cultural identity, language, and the relationship between political power and the rights of indigenous communities. On 20 August 2026, the Kashag and the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile jointly organised a solidarity prayer service and peace march to mark the 49th day since the death of Lobga Rangzen, a Tibetan activist who died after self-immolating on 2 July in front of the United Nations Headquarters in New York.

Counterview News   In a significant shift that appears to be reshaping the global maritime demolition landscape, oil tankers from the so-called "short fleet" — vessels operating under international sanctions — are reported to be increasingly making their final voyage to the shipbreaking yards of Alang-Sosiya in Gujarat's Bhavnagar district , industry data reveals.

By A Representative   The People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), Rajasthan, has condemned the alleged attack on members of the Campaign for Justice in Primary Education (CJP) during their visit to Rampura urf Kanwarpura village in Jaipur district and demanded the immediate arrest of those responsible.

By Martin Macwan*  In alcohol-prohibited Gujarat, which holds India’s only Mahatma Mandir—built at a cost of ₹215 crore and spread over 34 acres—‘liquor-hooch’ is nothing surprising. The cost of Mahatma Mandir does not include the land price; according to current market rates, the land alone can be valued between ₹600 and ₹1,500 crore. If one-bedroom flats were built on the site while observing all regulations applicable to a 15-storey tower, around 13,000 slum dwellers could be housed there.

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat*  Parallel narratives serve no one except those who weaponise them for self-promotion. If we are serious about bringing people together, we must stand for the rights of all and condemn wrongdoing even when it inconveniences our own social positions. Consider the case of a Rapido driver in Lucknow who was banned by the company after an altercation with four railway employees who had hired his taxi late at night. According to the driver, the passengers were making derogatory remarks about his community, prompting him to intervene and force them out of the vehicle.

By Kantilal Parmar*  I have approached the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) seeking an independent, impartial, and transparent investigation into a serious incident that took place at the Gujarat Secretariat in Gandhinagar on August 18, 2026. The matter concerns social activist and women’s rights leader Chandrikaben Solanki, who, according to the information available to me, was denied an entry pass to the Secretariat when she went there to meet Gujarat’s Social Justice and Empowerment Minister, Dr. Manishaben Vakil, to raise an issue concerning social justice.

By Nava Thakuria*  Something unusual, if not outright illegal, has happened in Assam. The state government invoked the National Security Act (NSA, 1980) against indigenous land rights activist Pranab Doley just hours after a local court granted him bail. Doley was arrested on 13 July 2026 following his detention from a locality in Guwahati, in connection with a case registered at Bokakhat police station (Case No. 108/2026).

By A Representative   A human rights organisation, Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha (MASUM) has urged the West Bengal government to intervene immediately in the alleged detention, deprivation of basic necessities and denial of medical treatment to a 25-year-old Bangladeshi woman and her two-year-old son in Murshidabad.