Counterview

By Rajiv Shah  Former Gujarat topcop RB Sreekumar, an IPS officer of the 1971 batch, has alleged that the Gujarat government gave “totally false information” on the floor of the State Assembly regarding the appeal he made to the Gujarat governor for the “initiation of departmental action against those responsible for culpable negligence in maintenance of public order and investigation of genocidal crimes” during the 2002 riots.

By A Representative  Top environmental group Environics Trust has demanded that India should stop the current race to reach “the bottom of corporate taxation”. Demanding that India should lead the way to stop the “relentless race to the bottom of corporate taxation”, it said, “In the past few years, we have seen dramatic reduction in corporate taxes with a concurrent increase in indirect taxes, tolls and user fees which burden the poor.”

Counterview Desk  A civil rights group, the NREGA Sangharsh Morcha has sent a letter to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj stating that 34 per cent decrease in the fiscal budget of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA) for year 2021-22 has added to woes on India’s rural population, already suffering from “devastating impact” of the Covid-19 pandemic.

By Arup Mitra, Ayush Singh* The million plus cities and other large cities comprise the bulk of the urban investment and undertake a wide range of economic activities. Migrants from all economic spheres are therefore, attracted to these cities for earning their livelihood and experiencing upward mobility. Even an informal sector worker gets better off by moving to a large city compared to a small town. Though the level of congestion and other diseconomies are enormously large in large cities, fresh rounds of investments keep pouring in, which in turn shift the curves representing the economies and diseconomies of scale. As a result, the optimal city size keeps increasing with every round of fresh investment flowing into the city. What happens to the thousands of small and medium sized towns? To begin with, very few of them have strong drivers of growth. Except the satellite towns, which are close to the large cities and receive parts of the economic activities spilling over from the la...

Counterview Desk  CIVICUS , a top global alliance of civil society organisations seeking to strengthen citizen action and civil society around the world with a claimed membership of more than 10,000, objecting to the alleged harassment of IAS bureaucrat-turned-human rights activist Harsh Mander by the Government in India, has said that the the the Enforcement Directorate (ED) raid on his house and office highlights “an ongoing pattern of baseless and politically-motivated criminal charges brought by the authorities against activists across India”.

By Debmalya Nandy* The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) payments process has become no less than a technical conundrum which has not only resulted into workers’ predicaments but also diminished local accountability. The payments process is such that the workers will have no one to hold accountable for when their payments get delayed or in case of non-payments.

By Sanket Pandhare*  The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), offering up to 100 days of guaranteed work each year to rural Indians in every household whose adult members volunteer to do manual unskilled work, is the largest social protection programme in the world, in terms of the number of households covered.

By Martin Mawan*  One would not expect an activist working on Dalit rights to join such a protest. Dalits carry unhealed trauma that Gandhi caused to Dr Ambedkar and the Dalit cause of effective political representation by using violent means of his own definition in the event of the Poona Pact. This apart, Gandhi’s ideas in general, which changed often, on caste were orthodox. I have nothing to add to the subject after the sharpest critique offered by Dr Ambedkar. One would wonder, why do I lend my support to the voices of protest to the proposed World Class Renovation of Gandhi Ashram. My reasons for doing so are the following:In spite of grave ideological differences, both Dr Ambedkar and Gandhi, did not lose respect for one another. It was Dr Ambedkar who set aside all the bitterness on the third day after the Poona pact to visit Gandhi on latter’s calling, to solace the old man who was attacked by the orthodox Hindus calling him the ‘Rakshasa’ for agreeing to the Poona pact. S...

By Martin Macwan* One would not expect an activist working on Dalit rights to join such a protest. Dalits carry unhealed trauma that Gandhi caused to Dr BR Ambedkar and the Dalit cause of effective political representation by using violent means of his own definition in the event of the Poona Pact. This apart, Gandhi’s ideas in general, which changed often, on caste were orthodox. I have nothing to add to the subject after the sharpest critique offered by Dr Ambedkar.

Pushkar Raj*  As the weeks long birthday festivity of the leadership was being rejoiced India wide, the Covid was still raging in several parts of India. The carnival was in line with the post-Covid decisions and actions of the leadership demonstrating a pursuit of personal power and glory instead of national interest in times of disease and death.