Counterview

By Rajiv Shah Even as sticking to his original argument that India's gross domestic product (GDP) since 2011-12 has been overestimated by 2.5%, renowned economist Arvind Subramanian has said in a fresh paper that his estimate of post-2011-12 growth rate at around 4.5% is surely not "implausibly low", as some of his critics have been arguing following his controversial June paper .

Counterview Desk India's independent Right to Information watchdog, The National Campaign for Peoples’ Right to Information (NCPRI), in a statement, has said that the Government of India’s proposed amendments to the RTI Act to empower the Centre to unilaterally decide the tenure, salary, allowances and other terms of service of Information Commissioners at the Centre and States “seriously undermine” the law.

Counterview Desk NREGA Sangharsh Morcha, a well-known advocacy group for the rural jobs guarantee scheme, under implementation since 2005, has said that the statement by the Rural Development Minister has a made a mockery of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) on the floor of Parliament, revealing the ruling BJP’s “anti-worker and anti-poor bias”.

Excerpts “The Right to Information (Amendment) Bill, 2019: A Critical Review of the Amendment Proposals and the Underlying Reasoning”, prepared by Venkatesh Nayak, Access to Information Programme, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, New Delhi: *** The Government of India (GoI) has come up with a Bill to amend the Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act). This is GoI’s third attempt to amend this seminal law since its enforcement in October 2005. First, in August 2006, the Union Cabinet approved proposals to amend the law in order to keep “file notings” or opinion and advice recorded on file by officers involved in a decision-making chain on issues other than those relating to development and social issues. Thanks to the very vocal and widespread opposition from the citizenry, the government was compelled to shelve the proposal without ever introducing it in Parliament. Second, in 2013, GoI tabled a Bill to amend the RTI Act in order to insulate from public scrutiny, all political pa...

A Matu Jansangathan protest to allow Ganga to flow freely By Vimal Bhai* In a recent address to Parliament, the President of India said that the government has set a goal for making the Ganga uninterrupted and clean by 2022. Along with the Ganga, the government will work on a similar pattern on the Yamuna, Narmada, Kaveri, Godavari and other rivers. This has got me worried about the future of these rivers in the country.

By Venkatesh Nayak* In less than two months of returning to power, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA-III) government has revived its 2018 proposal to curtail the autonomy of the Information Commissions established under the Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act). A similar attempt was made exactly one year ago but the Bill to assume power to regulate the tenure, salaries and allowances of Information Commissioners across the country was not tabled in Parliament.

The Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP), a Mumbai-based human rights organization currently taking up the cause of those who are being "wrongfully" declared foreigners in Assam, has said that "nearly 60 people have lost their lives and their deaths are connected to citizenship related issues" in the state. "While some have allegedly committed suicide due to frustration, anxiety and helplessness related to the National Register of Citizens (NRC), some allegedly took their own lives fearing incarceration in detention camps", CJP says, releasing the names of those who have died in Assam. "There are also some people who died under rather mysterious circumstances in detention camps", it notes, adding, CJP has so far "compiled and verified these deaths as of July 17, 2019... A total of 58 people have died so far. These include 9 women." According to CJP, "Those who died hailed from low income, underprivileged and marginalised backgroun...

By  A  Representative Ahmedabad's civil rights organization, Nagrik Sashaktikaran Manch (NSM), has decided to launch 'Improve roads, Save lives' campaign on Sundays starting July 21 across different parts of the city for the next two months, reminding city authorities that the recent Kankaria incident, in which two persons died and 29 injured when the ride collapsed, was only a grim reminder to "the cost of negligence" on the part of those who had assigned business to the firm which operated it. Jatin Seth, convener, NSM, in a letter to the Ahmedabad municipal commissioner and mayor, said, such innocents may again be lost if cave-ins, pot/pit holes on roads are not taken seriously. "This will happen if the Ahmedabad Municipal Commission (AMC) keeps on ignoring all warnings issued by news media and citizens when there will be heavy rainfall during the current monsoon season", he added. The campaign, which will cover Sarangpur, Odhav, Rakhial, Sukhramnagar...

By V Suresh* In the background of the triumphant re-election of the Modi government for a second term covering 2019-24, more concerns arise than merely the fact that we will witness a continuation of 5 more years of communally divisive, sectarian and majoritarian politics.

By  A  Representative In a significant move, which is likely to have repercussions at multiple levels, the World Bank has decided to pull out of the $300 million lending to the Amaravati Capital City project in Andhra Pradesh. Wthe orking Group on International Financial Institutions (WGonIFIs) and the affected communities of the Amaravati Capital City Project have welcomed the decision, saying the project was being implemented without taking into account threat to people’s livelihood.