Counterview

Annastacia Palazczuk By A Representative In major relief, the Adani Group, seeking to go in for one of the world’s biggest mining projects in Australia’s Queensland province, has reached an agreement with its new Labour government which has just taken over, allowing it to dump the dredge spoil on land on the site known as T2, adjacent to the existing coal terminal, and not on ecologically sensitive Caley Valley wetlands or within the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area.

By A Representative A whopping Rs 10,000 crore is likely to remain unspent out of the total allocation for Rs 71,500 crore, set aside for annual plan by the Gujarat government for the year 2014-15. Annual plan consists of developmental expenditure for the social and economic upliftment of the population in such sectors like health and education. It differs from non-plan expenditure, which the government must spend for paying debts, interest on loans, salaries to government employees, and other such expenditure, which does not directly benefit people.

Vyara rally in support of Gamit By A Representative The Gujarat High Court’s Prevention of Anti-Social Activities (PASA) Board on Monday ordered the release of Jayram Gamit, a young tribal activist of South Gujarat’s Tapi and Chhotaudepur districts. Gamit was arrested under PASA Act on January 31, allegedly in order to preempt a tribal rally, which was planned in Chhotaudepur on February 2. The district was simultaneously declared “terrorist prone”. Section 144 orders were imposed and the rally was banned.

By A Representative A People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) fact-finding team has found that the communal clashes in and around Hansot taluka of Bharuch District in Gujarat, which led to the death of three innocent persons on January 14, 2015, the day of Uttarayan Festival, was “not a sporadic incident” but “a gradual build-up that started on December 9, 2014, which the local administration failed to anticipate.”

Counterview Desk A recent survey report, prepared by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi, for the a high-profile NGO, Lokniti, has found that, given an employment opportunity, 61 per cent of India’s farmers would like to shift to cities, and 50 per cent of farmers said they are “ready to quit farming” if such a possibility arises.

Arvind Panagariya By A Representative Why should the controversial Land Acquisition Ordinance, seeking to replace the 2013 Act, be turned into a full-fledged Act? Explanation put forward by Arvind Panagariya, vice-chairman of the Niti Aayog -- set up by Prime Minister Narendra Modi replacing Planning Commission -- is: Because large majority of farmers, 90 per cent to be exact, allegedly do not having any special liking for farming as their occupation which could earn them income.

Kavita Krishnan By Our Representative In a fresh controversy surrounding Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, women activists have taken strong exception to his latest statement on the International Women’s Day (IWD), where he asked men to follow his wife and mother who had supported him during the Aam Admi Party (AAP) campaign in Delhi by continuing their household work. “During my fight against corruption, my wife ran the house while my mother supported me,” he had said.