RajivBuzz

  By Rajiv Shah   A few days ago, I attended a press conference for the release of a study examining the impact of automation on women workers in Ahmedabad’s construction sector. Conducted by  Geeta Thatra  and  Saloni Mundra  for  Aajeevika Bureau  and  Work Fair and Free , the study immediately caught my attention—particularly a passing reference in the presentation to how  Marxist theory  tends to reduce women’s oppression to class relations and economic structures such as private property, production, and wage labour.

  Recently, I attended what I would call a veterans’ meet — a gathering to recall the  Emergency  imposed by  Indira Gandhi , whose resistance is said to have begun in  Ahmedabad  on  October 12, 1975 . At that time,  Gujarat  was one of the two states described as an “island of freedom.” It was ruled by  Janata Morcha  chief minister  Babubhai Jashbhai Patel . The other such “island” was  Tamil Nadu .

This blog continues  my story , “A revdi-funded dream? Tax breaks, hype, unease: PwC reveals GIFT City’s fragile foundations.”  Ironic though it may seem, what PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) recently observed about the lack of a talent pool in Prime Minister Narendra Modi ’s dream project, the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City), had already been predicted by another global consultant — McKinsey & Company — not days or months ago, but more than two decades earlier in what was then described as a feasibility study.

 Backed by generous subsidies (or so-called "revdis") channeled to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s flagship project, Gujarat International Finance Tec-City, or GIFT City, a recent PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report claims it is “uniquely positioned to connect India to international markets and foster next-generation FinTech and IT innovation.” 

A few days back, I was a little surprised to receive a Hindi article in plain text format from veteran Gujarat Dalit rights leader Valjibhai Patel , known for waging many legal battles under the banner of the Council of Social Justice (CSJ) on behalf of socially oppressed communities.

I have been forwarded a report titled “Profit and Genocide: Indian Investments in Israel”. It has been prepared by the advocacy group Centre for Financial Accountability (CFA) and authored by Hajira Puthige. The report was released following the Government of India’s signing of a Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) with Israel.

  By Rajiv Shah  My interaction with critics and supporters of Mahatma Gandhi, ranging from those who consider themselves diehard Gandhians to Left-wing and Dalit intellectuals, has revealed that in the long arc of his public life, few issues expose his philosophical tensions more than his shifting stance on Varnashram Dharma—the ancient Hindu concept that society should be divided into four varnas, or classes, based on duties and aptitudes.

  A  new report , "Who Controls the Narrative? Legal Restrictions on Freedom of Expression in the Commonwealth", prepared by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), the Commonwealth Journalists Association (CJA), and the Commonwealth Lawyers Association, approvingly quotes Access Now, which has named India the “world’s internet shutdown leader,” with at least 116 recorded shutdowns in 2024.

The other day, P. Sainath was in Ahmedabad to deliver a lecture on the "Role of Media in Democracy: Prospects and Retrospect." An excellent speaker, he is not just a left-wing rural journalist but also an  erudite scholar . This was the second time I listened to him in Ahmedabad. The last time I attended his lecture was in 2017, when he  told me , on the sidelines of a function organised by an NGO, that he “differed” from Dr B.R. Ambedkar’s view that rural-to-urban Dalit migration would help annihilate casteism. Frankly—call it my inertia or whatever—I am not very familiar with Sainath’s recent writings, though from time to time I do read some of the very in-depth reports focusing on rural India on the excellent site he has been running for about a decade, People’s Archive of Rural India ( PARI ), which is, for all practical purposes, a virtual database for learning or understanding anything about how people live and work in rural India. Not that I wasn’t familiar with Sainat...