Counterview

By Rajiv Shah  Raising a controversy, two well-known economists, Prof Jadgish Bhagwati and Prof Arvind Panagariya, known for what have been called “neo-liberal” views, have sought to justify Gujarat riots, saying that they were not a “pogrom” and were not targeted against any particular religious group. Professors at the Columbia University, so far both of them have refrained any comment on Gujarat riots, even as praising Gujarat’s economic growth model, and how, in their view, Gujarat development has led to improvement in the social sector, especially health and education.

By A Representative  A fresh report on labour and employment situation in India, prepared by a high-profile organisation, believes that low labour force participation rate in India is largely because the female labour force’s participation rate is dismally low.  “India Labour and Employment Report 2014”, published by Academic Foundation, New Delhi, which created a ripple recently for coming up with a report in association with several other institutes of learning which said Gujarat is No 1 state in economic freedom index, has ranked the state as No 12th out of a total of 21 states it has chosen for analysis for working out an Employment Situation Index. The report finds that Himachal Pradesh is the best state in employment state, ranking it No 1, followed by Delhi, Haryana, Karnataka, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Kerala, and Rajasthan. Despite relatively low ranking of Gujarat in Employment Situation Index (ESI), the report says, “Gener...

By Rajiv Shah  Facts have come to light suggesting that there is something extremely suspicious with the data in the new report prepared by the Government of India-appointed committee headed by Jawaharlal Nehru University’s (JNU’s) Prof Amitabh Kundu on the condition of Muslims in India. The report is a follow-up of the famous Sachar Committee report of 2006, which had pointed towards negligence of the minorities, especially Muslims, in different social sectors, particularly education and health, and seeks to suggest that poverty in rural and urban Gujarat went down drastically between 2004-05 and 2011-12.

By A Representative Has the Gujarat government’s “neo-liberal” economic persuasion, which presupposes that economic growth leads to automatic development of the social sector, including income, education and health, begun to work? It would seem to, if one of the latest reports, hurriedly released by the UPA government alongside the announcement of the Lok Sabha elections, is any indication. An updated version of the India Human Development Report 2011, released on March 11, 2014, suggests that Gujarat’s human development index (HDI) sharply rose by 26.77 per cent, between 2007-08 and 2011-12, which is one of the best in India!

By A Representative The Citizens for Peace and Justice (CJP), the NGO fighting cases of 2002 Gujarat communal riot victims, has accused the Gujarat police for spreading “blatant falsehoods, twisted facts, deliberate jugglery of accounts and foul innuendos” in an attempt to implicate it in a fraud case. In a statement, the CJP said, the affidavit filed by KN Patel on behalf of the crime branch on March 18, 2014 that the CJP and social activists Teesta Setalvad and Javed Anand have been siphoning off Rs 75,28,000 belonging to the CJP and Sabrang Trust for personal use is based on “falsehoods, twisted facts, deliberate jugglery”.

Overall Human Development Index Counterview News      “India Human Development Report 2011” was recently updated in view of new facts on income, education and health indices. Despite the fact that Gujarat has improved along with other states, its improvement is not as fast as the national average. The updated version of the “India Human Development Report 2011”, released at a seminar in New Delhi on March 11, 2014, has found that the six states which have low human development index (HDI) – Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Assam – have registered a much better improvement in HDI than several of the progressive states, including Gujarat. The report goes a long way to suggest that the percolation theory – which presupposes improvement in social sector even as economic growth rate improves — does not really work. Prepared by the Institute of Applied Manpower Research (IAMR), Planning Commission, the updated report states, “Despite lower absolute lev...

GSDP rate of growth in 2012-13 at current prices By Rajiv Shah In a major revelation, Gujarat’s rate of growth for the financial year 2012-13 was not only below the national average, but less than all major Indian states which have cared to make public gross state domestic product (GSDP) figures for that year. Latest GSDP figures, revealed by Gujarat’s finance minister Nitin Patel while presenting the interim budget for 2014-15, suggest that the state’s growth rate at current prices (i.e. without deducting inflation) in 2012-13 was just 9.52 per cent (rising from Rs 6,11,767 crore in 2011-12 to Rs 6,70,016 crore in 2012-13). This is against the national average (at current prices) of 13.26 per cent.