Amidst fresh controversy over the Gujarat government’s decision to go ahead with the construction of Garudeshwar weir across the Narmada river, allegedly without environmental clearance, a top official in Gandhinagar Sachivalaya has confided to Counterview that the “real purpose of the weir is to supply Narmada water to the industrial complexes in the nearby regions, especially in Bharuch district.” The official, who did not want to be named, said, “The state-owned Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC) has been asked to work out final details of the industrial areas that would need the water.”

  Even as Gujarat’s powerful babudom is gearing up for the high-profile stone laying ceremony on October 31, birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, for the so-called Statue of Unity, proposed as the tallest statue of the world, insiders close to chief minister Narendra Modi doubted if his idea of getting iron from farmers from all over the country in order to build its structure would ever succeed. A senior official, refusing to be named, suggested, even Modi believes that even the most ideal scenario it would not be possible to collect more than 700 tonnes of iron.

In a country that hardly produces world champions and Olympic medalists, Ahmedabad-based NGO group Drishti, which uses media and the arts to empower communities valuing their self-expression and human rights, has come up with a new documentary, “Googna Pahalvan”, highlighting the story of a man who, for the better part of his life, has been just that - a World Champion and a Deaflympics (Olympics for the Deaf) Gold Medalist. Drishti team has described the film (click  HERE  to see trailer) as “a story of grit, fierce dedication and hope”, adding it is “an attempt to make possible the dream of India’s most successful deaf athlete, his dream of making it to the Rio Olympics 2016.”

  Amidst raging controversy around whether Gujarat’s child malnutrition levels have actually gone down, with the Gujarat government vehemently denying a recent Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report that every third child in the state suffers from malnutrition, a recent research paper by one of the senior-most economists, Prof Arvind Panagariya of the Columbia University, has sharply contested the criterion of comparing India’s child malnutrition levels with those of Sub-Saharan African countries, which have much lower per capita incomes and poorer health indicators.

  Latest data made available from authoritative sources in Gujarat’s finance department have revealed something about which the state’s policy apparatus should be worried: A whopping 21 per cent of the annual plan allocation for the last financial year, 2012-13 remained “unspent” – or possibly diverted to the “non-plan” sector. As against non-plan expenditure, which is made of all the “necessary” expenditures which the Gujarat government must make, including payment to nearly six lakh government servants, interests on debts and other such obligations, annual plan allocation is made for satisfying the developmental needs of the state in fields as education, health, social justice, woman and child development, and amelioration of the backward areas.