Counterview

GIFT: A "replica" of smart city By A Representative Veteran town-planning expert MN Buch has questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dream of building 100 smart cities across India, saying in spite of decades of knowledge in urban planning, he has failed to find any clarity on the subject. “I spoke to high officials in the Ministry of Urban Development and they told me that they too are not very clear about what is meant by smart city, even as they are trying to work out the parameters of such a city”, Buch, former vice-chairman of the National Commission on Urbanization, said.

Varesh Sinha (right) at MoU signing with China By Rajiv Shah The Gujarat government is learnt to have made an unlikely move – it has "approached" the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) for finding out possibilities of a third extension for the incumbent chief secretary Varesh Sinha. Well-informed sources in the state bureaucracy have revealed that while the reason being offered for seeking Sinha’s third extension is the need of his “indispensable” services for the forthcoming Vibrant Gujarat investors’ world business meet, to take place in on January 11-12, 2015. “Sinha is already deep into preparations. His services have become necessary for the next summit”, a top Sachivalaya source said, quoting officials close to Sinha.

By A Representative In an overt case of caste discrimination in rural Gujarat, a Dalit locality, a kilometre from Vakhatpar village of Sayla taluka of Surendranagar district, set up about 24 years ago as part of the government’s “affirmative action” schemes for scheduled castes, even today does not have any drinking water facility, individual toilets, viable approach road and street lights. While a pipeline carrying Narmada river waters passes through the Kapelidhar area, where the Dalit locality is situated, the Gujarat government not provided any water connections. Nor is it connected with the huge overhead overhead tank, situated just 100 metres from there.

By A Representative A high-level interaction in Geneva, United Nations (UN) experts and civil rights activists stressed on the need to move towards a “more structured mechanism against caste-based discrimination” in countries like India and its South Asian neighbours. During the interaction, in which UN special rapporteurs, civil society groups and independent experts participated, there was sharp focus on the need to usher in a formal UN mechanism to end caste-based discrimination in a year’s  time. This mechanism, it was suggested, could monitor caste discrimination and suggest ways to overcome it. Before the mechanism is worked out, experts could move around different countries to see how effectively are laws to end caste-based discrimination being implemented.

By Rohit Prajapati* Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Swachh Bharat Mission on October 2, 2014 and in his message on his website, he says, “A clean India is the best tribute we can pay to Bapu when we celebrate his 150th birth anniversary in 2019. […] Today, I appeal to everyone, particularly political and religious leadership, mayors, sarpanchs and captains of industry to plan and wholeheartedly engage in the task of cleaning your homes, work places, villages, cities and surroundings.” I want to remind Modi that earlier as the Chief Minister of Gujarat, he had launched similar campaign Nirmal Gujarat – 2007′ and made tall claims during that campaign. But reality is best seen in Ahmedabad at illegal solid waste dumping site at Gyaspur-Pirana – a waste mountain near Sabarmati River adjacent to the main road. Modi should know the basic facts as revealed in the ‘Report of the Task Force on Waste to Energy’ dated 12 May 2014 by the Planning Commission of India. This report states...

By A Representative The attached photographs, forwarded by activist of the Dalit rights NGO Navsarjan Trust Natubhai Parmar to Counterview, show that manual scavenging in Wadhwan municipality of Surendranagar district, Gujarat, continues, despite the authorities’ promise last month that the despicable practice would end. The photographs were taken on October 2, 2014, Gandhi Jayanti Day, during Swachh Bharat, the all-India campaign launched Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Parmar said, the women were asked to “manually clean up human excreta” during the campaign. Last month, they protested and went on hunger strike against manual scavenging, and a compromise was struck following intervention by by the district collector, Surendranagar.

 Greenpeace protest in Mahan jungles By A Representative The day on which Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached Delhi from his five day tumultuous tour of New York and Washington and a claimed successful dialogue with US president Barrack Obama, the New York Times (NYT) has, in a sharply worded editorial titled India’s “Environment at Risk”, authored by its powerful editorial board collective, has declared that the Government of India’s (GoI’s) effort towards “gutting environmental protection laws and demonizing citizen groups that raise legitimate concerns are no way to move the nation forward.”