Counterview

By  A  Representative Even as predicting that India might experience one of the highest rates of growth in the world over the next three years – 7.8 per cent in 2016, 7.9 per cent in 2017 and 7.9 per cent in 2018 – the World Bank believes that to maintain this rate of growth, the Government of India would do well to avoid “mainly domestic risks.”

By  A  Representative A group of prominent citizens, including environmentalists, wildlife experts, lawyers, engineers, town planners and architects of Gujarat’s cultural capital, Vadodara, have alleged that the state authorities have begun the work of “developing” the riverfront Vishamitri, which meanders through the city, without any environmental clearance (EC), despite an earlier assurance.

By  A  Representative Even as the ruling NDA government has been charging the opposition, especially Congress, for seeking to roadblock implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) across India, facts suggest, Narendra Modi as Gujarat chief minister, and later his successor, Anandiben Patel, taken strong exception GST till December 2014.

Kirit Rathod By A Representative In a step, which is likely to raise eye-brows of India’s top right to information (RTI) activists, the Gujarat government has refused to part with any information regarding official review of the state’s reservation policy towards Dalits, Adivasis and Other Backward Classes (OBCs) between 2001 and 2015.

The agitating farmers By A Representative Farmers of the Saurashtra region of Gujarat have begun showing signs of frustration over lack of irrigation water to save the winter crop. Information trickling from remote parts of the area say, the farmers of Talaja and Mahuva of Bhavnagar district have gone restive, going so far as to block the highway connecting between the two towns.

By A Representative Well-known Gandhian academic, educationist, social activist Sandeep Pandey has accused RSS hardliners for forcing the decision of the Banaras Hindu University’s Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) for prematurely ending his contract of working as visiting faculty after teaching there for two-and-a-half years.

By  A  Representative In an unusual move, the left-wing All-India Save Education Committee (AISEC), in its comprehensive critique of the Government of India’s proposed New Education Policy (NEP), has strongly opposed the Right to Education (RTE) Act, 2009, declaring that it “straightaway paves the path for private investors” to get into the education of children and “legalizes” commercialization of education.

By  A  Representative The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has rejected a Right to Information (RTI) plea of senior human rights activist Venkatesh Nayak for a copy of FIR, on the basis of which notorious underworld don Chhota Rajan. The rejection came after 49 days of receiving the request claiming that the RTI Act “does not apply” to the CBI because it is an exempt organisation under Section 24 of the Act.

By Rajiv Shah A high-profile study, “India Health Report: Nutrition 2015”, released last month, has found that “developed” Gujarat lags behind most major Indian states in child nutrition status. Quoting latest Government of India figures, the study says that 33.5 per cent of under-five children are underweight, which is the seventh worst among 20 major Indian states.

By Venkatesh Nayak* In November 2015, the arrest of the notorious underworld don- Chhota Rajan in Indonesia and his eventual deportation to India hit the headlines in the print and electronic media. According to media reports he was caught in Bali travelling under an assumed identity and an allegedly fake passport. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is said to have registered a First Information Report (FIR) against unknown officials under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (PoCA) and other applicable penal laws in this case. A tremendous achievement for India’s law enforcement agencies, no doubt. Within less than a week of this news report about CBI’s swift action being published in the media, I submitted a formal request under The Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act), seeking a copy of the FIR from the CBI- nothing more, nothing less. The CBI has rejected the request after 49 days of receiving the request claiming that the RTI Act does not apply to it because it is an ...