Counterview

By NS Venkataraman* On 2584th Birth Anniversary of Gautama Buddha on 16th May,2022 ( Buddha Purnima day), I was all the time introspecting about Buddhist philosophy and inevitably started thinking about the great Buddhist country Tibet , which is now undergoing a stressful time. When thinking about Buddhist philosophy, I could not but think about respected the Dalai Lama, who is the greatest Buddhist philosopher today in the world and who loves everyone and who does not hate anyone including those leaders in the Chinese government who have done the greatest harm to him and to Tibet. Now, respected the Dalai Lama remains as a standing monument of Tibetan spirit, which reflects love, peace and unbending struggle for truth and harmony not only in Tibet but all over the world I realized that while China can physically occupy Tibet region, China cannot destroy the spirit of Tibet, which is reflected by the mindset of Tibetans who are hoping against hope that a day would come ...

By A Representative Various areas of Kandhamal district in Odisha are experiencing acute water shortage and infrastructure woes adding to the problems of the people, reveals a recent study on Water availability and sources” conducted by non-profit Atmashakti Trust and its allies Odisha Shramajeebee Mancha , Mahila Shramajeebee Mancha, Odisha and Jeebika Suraksha Mancha, Kandhamal. Conducted online that covered 304 villages under 15 Gram Panchayats of Kotagada block of Kandhamal, the survey result found that erratic and inadequate water supply has made life difficult for the people living on hilly and remote areas of the district and recommends immediate repair of water structure/infrastructure to meet water needs of these communities. Odisha has set a target to cover all rural households to have access to safe and adequate drinking water at their doorsteps by 2024. A whopping Rs 50,000 crore is projected to be spent under different schemes and projects to ensure the same. However, the ...

By Rosamma Thomas*  On the morning of May 23, 2022, this writer slipped and fell on a slimy moss-covered private road in Pala town, Kottayam district, Kerala. One look at the ankle of the right leg was enough to show that it needed medical intervention – the ankle was out of shape, and the bones had got out of whack. I was bundled into an autorickshaw – there was already an elderly lady in the auto, but the driver understood the urgency of the situation and requested his passenger to accommodate a slight delay in reaching her destination. The kind old lady obliged us, and an aunt accompanied me to the General Hospital, Pala. There, the doctor at the orthopedic department refused to take questions on the names of affected bones, shut me up and told me I would have to bear some pain – he was manually going to adjust the joint. One painful pull, and then a push; and then a quick plaster of the leg, till below the knee. I was admitted to the hospital for tests that needed to be done ah...

By Bharat Dogra It is a true mark of greatness if what a leader struggles to achieve in his lifetime is widely realized to be even more valuable in the years or decades after he has left the world. This is exactly how Jawaharlal Nehru is being remembered by more and more people of his country, despite a persistent tendency on the part of the present right-wing government to deny the greatness of his achievements and legacy. At a wider level the world also increasingly remembers the importance of his legacy of non-alignment and the highly relevant, although not perfect, efforts to combine democracy and peace with spread of socialist ideas in a country where deeply conservative ideas still held deep roots among a large number of people. Nehru was the Prime Minister of India for the first 17 years following independence in 1947 from nearly two centuries of British rule. In fact he remained a very popular Prime Minister till his death on May 27, 1964 from a heart attack, winning three gene...

By Gopal Krishna  The total estimated budget of the biometric UID/Aadhaar number project and its cost: benefit analysis has not been disclosed till date. Unless the total estimated budget of the project is revealed, all claims of benefits are suspect and untrustworthy. How can one know about total savings unless the total cost is disclosed? Can limited audit of continuing expenditure of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), an instrumentality of Union of India be deemed a substitute for total estimated budget of the biometric UID/Aadhaar number project of UIDAI? It has been admitted by CAG that the audit of functioning of the UIDAI is partial because of non-transparency. The report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India arising from performance audit of functioning of the UIDAI for the period from 2014-15 to 2018-19 is incomplete because it is based on statistical information “to the extent as furnished by UIDAI” upto March 2021. There is also a need to c...

By Souparno Banerjee* Biodiversity conservation is an absolute imperative today, but is India serious about it? Notwithstanding the alacrity that the country has shown in ratifying and supporting international biodiversity conventions or in enacting domestic laws and regulations, India’s record in conservation and use of its bioresources has been quite dismal – finds an investigative analysis done by "Down To Earth" (DTE) magazine. Thirty years ago, in 1992, the world had agreed on a landmark global treaty: the Convention on Biological Diversity. Says Sunita Narain, editor of DTE and director general of Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), which helps publish the magazine: “What became clear very soon is that the conservation of bioresources, and particularly their utilisation, require active involvement of local communities. These communities need to be active partners and also share the profits of the use of their resources and knowledge.” In 2010, as a result, came th...

By Bharat Dogra* The extremely tragic death of 10 workers at a tunnel construction site in Ramban on Jammu-Srinagar highway has again drawn attention to the serious hazards faced by workers employed in highways and dams in Himalayan region, several of them in very remote areas. These workers were trapped after a landslide hit the under-construction tunnel on May 19, followed later by one more landslide. Apart from these deaths, the remaining workers suffered injuries. While overall conditions at many such construction sites are known to be hazardous, according to preliminary reports the risks here increased due to sub-contracts which resulted in work being handled by those who did not have much experience or knowledge of such hazardous conditions. Sub-contracting is a common practice in such work and the principal employer gets away with less legal liability for hazardous conditions. Workers face more risks under this system and their rights are adversely affected. This ...

By IMPRI Team The gendered nuances of mental health have been largely misunderstood. To address these knowledge gaps, #IMPRI Gender Impact Studies Center (GISC), IMPRI Impact and Policy Research Institute, New Delhi, organized a special talk under the #WebPolicyTalk series: The State of Gender Equality – #GenderGaps on the topic Women and ‘Mental Health’. The speaker for the session was Prof Rachana Johri, Director, Centre for Psychotherapy and Clinical Research, Dr B.R. Ambedkar University, New Delhi . The event was chaired by Prof Vibhuti Patel Visiting Professor, IMPRI and Former Professor, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai . The other esteemed discussants included Dr Amrita Nandy, Researcher and writer on gender, rights and culture and an Adjunct Lecturer, Ambedkar University, New Delhi , Dr Cicilia Chettiar, Head, Department of Psychology, Maniben Nanavati Women’s College, Mumbai , and Dr Aparna Joshi, Assistant Professor, School of Human Ecology, and Project Dire...

Counterview Desk Dr Narasimha Reddy Donthi, independent public policy expert, in a letter to Nareshpal Gangwar, additional secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), New Delhi, has expressed “seriously concern” that a recent office memorandum (OM) has sought to exempt certain types of gene-edited plants from the country's genetically modified organism  (GMO) regulations, without any reason or basis or representation. Dr Reddy regretted, “Such a serious decision, with an impact scale of unimaginable proportions, in terms of time and ecology, is being pushed through an ordinary office memorandum”, insisting, “This is circumvention of the processes enshrined in Indian Constitution, which has defined democratic participation in matters of critical importance.” Stating that the exemption from regulation is a policy decision and has legal implications, he demanded immediate withdrawal the OM, insisting, the government should take a "strong stand again...