Counterview

Shukleshwar Mahadev temple in Anaval village By Rajiv Shah  The other day, I was informally talking with a younger friend on caste situation in Gujarat. In order to explain how caste has taken shape, he told me his own example. “I am supposed to be Anavil Brahmin”, as he said this, I wondered where these Brahmins are placed in the Brahmin caste hierarchy, which is known to be pretty rigid, and has many sub-castes.  This friend – whom I don’t want to name in order not to embarrass him (I know he does not believe in casteism in either traditional sense of the term) – said, “Well, I don’t think they are among the top of the caste ladder.” Then, he went to explain to be me the myth that is prevailing about the origin of the Anavils. Pointing out that all Anavil Brahmins belong to a village called Anaval in the Mahuva taluka of Surat district of South Gujarat, he said, “We were all said to tribals. According to this story, when Lord Ram reached Gujarat after he was wandering around...

By Dr Prem Singh*  In the new National Education Policy 2020 (NEP), there has been a quantum leap towards neo-colonization of Indian education via privatization to further corporatization of education. There is a crucial need to understand this new dimension of the NEP. Significantly, under the NEP, foreign universities and foreign direct investment (FDI) have been allowed entry in the realm of higher education.

By A Representative Education activists and civil society organizations (CSOs) across Odisha have opposed the state government’s move to close schools with low student strength as it will increase dropouts among children, especially in the tribal and backward regions of the state, where children mostly depend on government schools for their education. Due to the government's move, around 14,339 primary and upper primary schools in the state will face imminent closure.

Family members of the victim  Counterview Desk A fact-finding team of the All-India Dalit Mahila Adhikar Manch comprising of Utkarsha Tomar, Kusum Lata, Cand Asha, has alleged that the family of Neetu, a member of the Other Backward Caste (OBC), who was found dead on October 4 at a residence in Model Town, Delhi, was treated treated in the same way as the family of the Hathras gangrape victim.

Abuzar with Shabnam Hashmi By A Representative In a shocking incident, a social activist, Mohd Abuzar, woke up to find on September 13, 2020 that his Facebook account had been suspended. He came to know of this after he received numerous calls from friends and relatives, who, wanting to communicate with him, received a strange message that he had died, asking them to pay their tributes Abuzar.

Janet Rice, David Shoebrodge, Lee Rhiannon  Counterview Desk A roundtable organised by Australian Greens, which is the third biggest political group in the country, held to discuss human rights situation in India at the New South Wales Parliament in Sydney has insisted that parliamentarians, human rights activists and lawyers should play a more active role “standing up for human rights not just in their own places but also in India.”

Counterview Desk  A report , based on an evidence-based study by a multinational NGO, Global March Against Child, which headquarters in the Hague, providing an overview of child labour with a gender lens in sugarcane harvesting in India, has said that large number of children are pushed into hazardous child labour due to structural poverty among harvesters, most of whom are from scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other backward classes.

Wall writing to propagate nutritional value of dal  By A Representative An Odisha civil society report has revealed that despite the fact that the state government has been offering 1 kg of dal (pulses) per month to each family as a "covid elevation measure", 63% of the families families surveyed said the dal lasted between one and five days, while 27% of families consumed dal between six and 10 days.

By NS Venkataraman*  With the Covid-19 pandemic causing severe setbacks to the national economy and upsetting the Government of India’s proactive and forward looking programmes, and the Government of India seeking to retrieve the economy and restore it on the way forward, there is the need to boost consumption in the country.

Klaus Schwab  By Bhabani Shankar Nayak* The pandemic has shaken up the neoliberalism as an economic project of capitalism. The economic architecture of neoliberalism based on austerity, liberalisation, privatisation, and globalisation has failed to provide basic dignity of life in terms of basic health, education, home and food security.