Counterview

Rahul Gandhi with Jagdish Tytler By Firoz Bakht Ahmed* It seems that Rahul Gandhi has decided not to grow. Rahul’s displaced questions to the Narendra Modi government appears to be more as an effort to vitiate the atmosphere of patriotism. It only further helps bury the image of the already shattered Congress. Amidst trying circumstances at the India-Chinese borders, he asked where Modi was hiding.

Rahul Mukherji, Jai Prasad and Seyed Hossein Zarhani of Heidelberg University, Germany, argue in this article, published in Identities Journal, that COVID-19 management has undermined democratic governance central to the idea of India and close to the heart of founders of modern India. These values were undermined in a number of ways. First, sub-national states and politicians were not adequately consulted before the lockdown on 24 March 2020, even though Kerala’s spectacular performance was well known. Moreover, it is the states that would have to deal with issues such as health, migration and general wellbeing. The imperial and sudden lockdown impacted migrant workers from the oppressed classes and castes most severely. Second, the lockdown of 24 March need not have been sudden since opposition politicians had raised this issue in the Parliament since mid-February. Democratic values were undermined during the lockdown to the detriment of the Indian citizen.  Excerpts: ***...

By Moin Qazi* There’s the pandemic you know about all too well. It is taking a heavy toll on lives and livelihoods. Then, there’s the shadow pandemic, which is rapidly unraveling the limited but precious progress the world has made toward gender equality in the past few decades. This shadow pandemic can be seen in the rolling background of this progress with the loss of employment for women who hold the majority of insecure, informal and lower-paying jobs and the rapid increase in unpaid care work for women and girls. Across every sphere, from health to the economy, security to social protection, the impact of COVID-19 has been exacerbated for women and girls simply by virtue of their gender. It is time that apart from the search for a vaccine and medicines for handling the virus and its disease, we focus on strengthening institutions and mechanisms that can help in combating the shadow pandemic. Self-help groups (SHGs) are India’s most powerful conduit for incubating and empowering wo...

Supriya Sharma, Siddharth Varadarajan, Aakar Patel Counterview Desk Asking the Government of India and state governments to stop “criminalizing” free speech and protect journalism, the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) has said that the latest victim of media crackdown is new portal “Scroll” executive editor Supriya Sharma, wrote an eight part series on the suffering imposed by the lockdown in Varanasi, exposing the loss of livelihoods and hunger faced by the marginalized”.

Counterview Desk Taking strong exception to "virtual clearances" to eco-sensitive projects in the Western Ghats, the National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) in a statement has said urged for a review of the four-lane highway, 400 KV transmission line and double tracking of the railway line through the Bhagwan Mahavir Wildlife Sanctuary and Mollem National Park in Goa. 

Counterview Desk A survey by the Centre for Equity Studies, Delhi Research Group and the Karwan-e-Mohabbat campaign undertaken to address key questions of how India’s labouring classes have had to cope with the strictest lockdown the world between March 25 and May 31, has talked of “continued humanitarian crisis of joblessness, intense food insecurity and massive dislocation of workers.”

Returned migrants being tested at an entry point in Uttarakhand By A Representative A telephonic survey, conducted among 323 returned migrant workers in hill districts of Uttarakhand, has revealed that even though they have returned from the places they worked – mainly Mumbai, Delhi NCR, other districts of the state and Rajasthan – majority of the respondent (68%) would like go back to their destination places in the absence of employment opportunities in their native places of the state.

By A Representative Following the latest round of samples taken they have taken at the J Point, Sarod Village, on the banks of Mahi river in Central Gujarat, senior environmentalists Rohit Prajapati and Krishnakant of the Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti (PSS) have alleged that the Vadodara Enviro Channel Limited ( VECL ) and polluting industries in Vadodara district continue to discharge untreated wastewater despite clear directions not to do it. VECL claims to be in the business of conveyance of wastewater for more than 250 industrial units in and around Vadodara district of Gujarat through the 55 km long channel after adequately treating them and safely disposing them into the Bay of Khambhat. In a statement, the environmentalists say, the samples, taken on June 21, 2020 at 10.30 am, suggested that chemical oxygen demand (COD) at the J Point was 2520 mg/l as against the norm of 250 mg/l, chloride was 6098.11 mg/l as against the norm of 600 mg/l, and sulfate was 4328 mg/l as against the no...

By NS Venkataraman* There are still six months left in the year 2020 and it is difficult to predict as to how the India-China confrontation would turn during this period. It is crystal clear that India has no territorial ambition and has no desire to be involved in military confrontation with neighbouring countries, in the absence of provocation.

By Fr Cedric Prakash SJ* On June 20 the United Nations observed yet another ‘World Refugee Day’. In a statement for the day the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said: “We are marking this year’s World Refugee Day against a backdrop of a dramatic global crisis. Not only are record numbers of people forced to flee their homes, but the world is grappling with Covid-19, a disease that is still very much affecting us all. What started as a health crisis has expanded, and today many of the most vulnerable – refugees and the displaced amongst them – face a pandemic of poverty.