Counterview

By Rajiv Shah Gujarat’s top Dalit rights organisation, Navsarjan Trust, is all set to initiate a unique campaign under which families from different parts of the country will contribute a brass article or a utensil -- all of it will be melted and minted into a 1111 milligram diameter coin with the question engraved on it: Will the 1947 dream of untouchability-free India be reality yin 2047?

Sabarmati's Stagnant water body  By Bernard Kohn*  The Sabarmati river is one of the major west-flowing rivers in India. It originates in the Aravalli Range of the Udaipur district of Rajasthan and meets the Gulf of Khambhat of Arabian Sea after travelling 371 km in a south-westerly direction across Rajasthan and Gujarat. Forty eight km of the river length is in Rajasthan, while 323 km is in Gujarat. The Sabarmati is a seasonal river whose flows are dominated by the monsoon, with little or no flow post monsoon.

By Sanjeev Kumar*  Bijendra, aka Bobby, aged 47 lost his life doing a doleful job of cleaning the sewers at around 01:00p.m. in Pocket -3, Sector A-9 of Narela, Delhi on March 19, 2021. He had been in the profession for almost 10 years. He was the lone bread earner in his family and an only parent to his three minor daughters; after the death of his wife, approximately five years ago. Bijendra was accompanied by his colleague Vinod, alias Mota, to his daily work on 19th March, 2021. The work had been in progress for a couple of days under a private contractor named Manoj Sharma, who was given the contract by Delhi Development Authority (DDA). The workers had not been facilitated with any safety/protective equipment by their contractor. At the time of the incident, the two workers and the contractor were at the incident spot, who later was accompanied by the Action Officer Vinay Kumar from DDA. Vinod stated that they had opened two gutter lids, prior to opening the third one which l...

By Simi Mehta, Anshula Mehta  There has been an exponential increase in protests around the world, and these have been hailed as the site for speaking truth to those in power. These global phenomena have a unifying symbolic representation. The question that persists is that do all these protest sites create the same impact on power? Do all these protest sites become harbingers to saving an ideal of democracy? Are their differences in perception, symbolism, the role of actors involved and the outcome? Should these movements be valorized and glamourized?

Counterview Desk  More than 100 dignitaries, including educationists, academia, social activists, teachers’ union, civil society organisations (CSOs), various networks and people working on child rights, in a letter to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman have sought reversal of reduction in allocation for education in the Union Budget 2021-22, even as demanding substantial increase in it.

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat*  A lot has been said about the barbaric incident of a Muslim boy being beaten, scolded and denied water to drink at a temple complex near Ghaziabad. Many people expressed shock and sorrow and rightly expressed solidarity with the boy. Many said that their 'Hinduism' does not reflect this and that they are ashamed of the incident. Many apologised that their idea of India was not this where an innocent boy is denied the right to drink water.

By Arup Mitra, Mayumi Murayama*  Considerable overlaps exist between rural and urban poverty through migration and employment in the informal economy. However, several of the low-income households have been residing in the urban space for a very long time and it would be misleading to interpret them as a fresh spill-over from the rural areas. In fact, the elasticity of urban poverty with respect to rural poverty is very low. In spite of the fact that parts of the informal economy share close links with the formal sector, residual activities conducted on a large scale within the informal economy cannot be overlooked. Further, many of these low- income workers reside in slums and squatter settlements. Rural transformation has not been accompanied by the growth of demand induced activities. So, the rapid population movement from the rural space occurs in relation to the large cities, if not all the urban areas. But an exclusionary urban policy is not the right method of reducing the c...