Vulnerability to climate change in Gujarat remains a worrying policy issue for the state. A new study has found that there has been a sharp rise in the highly vulnerable areas in Gujarat over the last two decades.  A recent research work, which has still not caught public eye, “Analysis of Vulnerability Indices in Various Agro-Climatic Zones of Gujarat”, published in Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics (January-March 2013), should send alarming signals to the state policy makers, seeking to address disaster management issues in Gujarat. Prepared by a Junagarh Agricultural University scholar Deepa B Hiremath in association with a senior faculty, RL Shiyani, the study has found that, over the last two decades, not only has the number of districts under “highly vulnerable” category has gone from three (Panchmahals, Surat and Ahmedabad) to six (Surendrangar, Rajkot, Bharuch, Banaskantha Mehsana and Sabarkantha). Worse, Ahmedabad is now one of the two districts categorized as “very...

A recent Gujarat government affidavit says that as non-Muslim minorities’ plight was not considered by the Sachar Committee, it is “unconstitutional”. First, this is factually incorrect. And secondly, latest data suggest Muslims in India generally fall in the category of backward sections of population, and other minorities are much better off.  In a recent affidavit to the Supreme Court, the Gujarat government has said that “the Sachar Committee is neither constitutional nor statutory.”  Explaining its position, it insisted, the committee “has not taken into consideration other religious communities, i.e. Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists and Parsis. Therefore, it cannot form the basis of the scheme.” It added, “The committee’s target was to help the Muslims only.” The affidavit was the Gujarat government’s response to the Government of India’s (GoI’s) stand on Gujarat’s refusal to implement the pre-matriculation minority scholarship scheme. Gujarat moved the apex court against Gu...

Rasul Ghamzatov The recent decision of the Gujarat chief minister’s office (CMO) to “bar” the entry of accredited journalists to enter the Swarnim Sankul – the swanky complex built to house Narendra Modi’s office and of his Cabinet colleagues – wasn’t surprising. Only those journalists who had prior appointment or were “invited” by officials sitting inside had to be allowed in. The decision was implemented for about a week, but was lifted because, to quote a Modi aide, it was imposed because of a “misunderstanding.” While the aide didn’t explain what this “misunderstanding” was, it left me wondering whether it reflected the suspicious character of the man who has come to known as “Saheb”. The “official” reason forwarded for not allowing scribes was, there was an intelligence input which said a terrorist might enter into the Sankul in the garb of a journalist. However, circumstantial evidence suggested that the “ban” was imposed in the wake of the snoopgate which is rocking Modi’s image...

  Top international environmental group Greenpeace in a new report has targeted premier Gujarat-based business group Adanis, saying that one of its overseas operations in Australia for mining coal may have become “uneconomical.” Titled “The Adani Group: Remote Prospects. A financial analysis of Adani’s coal gamble in Australia’s Galilee Basin”, and prepared by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, Cleveland, Ohio, US, for Greenpeace Australia Pacific, the report states, “We view Adani Enterprises’ development of the Carmichael deposit as an uneconomic proposition. The low energy and high ash content are major constraints to the value of the coal.”

Gujarat’s coast is back in news, but for wrong reasons. A new ISRO report for the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India, has found adverse impact on mangroves due to industrial activity along the sea coast. A rise in the sea level may further adversely impact the coastal area, it adds.  A new report by the Space Application Centre (SAC), Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), Ahmedabad, called “Coastal Zones of India”, has suggested Gujarat – which has the longest coastline in India, of 1,600 km – is becoming increasingly vulnerable because of industrial activity along the coast, on one hand, and rise in the sea level, on the other. Signs of vulnerability can already be visible, with Gujarat becoming one of the four states where there has been “considerable decrease in mangrove vegetations”, other states being Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh. On the other hand, the report reveals, “Significant increase in the mangrove area has been noticed for the states...

A high-level study, carried out by a group of scholars led by Prof Usha Ram of the Centre for Global Health Research, St Michael’s Hospital, University of Toronto, “Neonatal, 159 month, and under-5 mortality in 597 Indian districts, 2001 to 2012”, has found that Gujarat’s six districts figure among 42 of India’s top laggard districts showing very slow fall in under-five mortality rate (U5MR). Published in Lancet, the reputed international health journal, the study shockingly  suggests  that two of the six districts has majority tribal population – Dahod and Valsad – while the rest have tribal population but not in majority. Gujarat accounts for nearly 15 per cent tribal population.

The study of tribes is generally a domain of social anthropologists and sociologists. In a rare attempt, a group of social scientists, many of them economists, mainly Gujarat-based, have come together to publish a book on how economic development has affected tribals in the state.  The new book, “Tribal Development in Western India”, edited by Amita Shah and Jharna Pathak (Routledge, 2014), not only reinforces the existing view that the tribal population of Gujarat, as elsewhere in the country, lags behind its non-tribal counterpart, especially in human development index (HDI), as found reflected in their poor health and educational indices. The book simultaneously suggests that, despite the hype around projects like Van Kalyan Yojna (VKY), announced by the state government to alleviate the Gujarat tribals’ plight during the 11th Five-Year-Plan (2007-12), they remain victims of unequal distribution of basic infrastructural facilities, on one hand, and low wages (leading to their hi...

  Though prepared by Bangalore-based tourism NGO Equations in 2008, the five-year-old report, “Public Purpose?”, suggests how relevant its observations are even today at a time the entire Kevadia Colony, next to the Narmada dam, alongside the surrounding rural areas, are being proposed as a major tourism site in Gujarat. The report had predicted that the tourism project would dispossess tribals of 51 plus villages of their land, even as pointing towards how the project is being promoted in complete violation of the laws which make tribal self-rule mandatory in tribal-dominated areas. 

Amidst considerable hallabaloo around top rating agency Crisil’s rating of Gujarat as No 3 – next only to Punjab and Kerala – both in prosperity index and in equity index (click  HERE ), what appears to have been missed is an important observation in its new Insight report, brought out in November 2013. The report says that, in Gujarat, 18.7 per cent of the households do not have “any assets”, which is less than the national average of 17.8 per cent. For the sake of analysis, Crisil – which bases its data on household survey of the Census of India 2011 – has divided households into two categories, those who have “all the assets” and those who do not have “any assets.”

Financial inclusion: Inter-state comparison There is a commonplace view that, as far as finance is concerned, Gujarat is at the very top. Believing this to be a factor not to be ignored, in 2007, Gujarat’s policy makers decided on an international finance city in the state — the Gujarat International Finance Tec-city (GIFT). However, a recent study by India’s foremost corporate rating agency, Crisil, suggests that penetration of finance among Gujarat’s population is below average. Called “Crisil Inclusix: An index to measure India’s progress on Financial Inclusion”, the study indicates that financial inclusion, a “key enabler of economic and social development”, is still relatively poor in Gujarat, which ranks No 18th among Indian states, with a rating of 38.6 on a scale of 100 as against the national average of 40.1. The Crisil study says, “In India, where a large section of the population still lives outside the ambit of formal financial services, the need to focus on inclusion i...

There has been considerable hoopla of late around how Gujarat’s health indicators, as found reflected in infant mortality rate (IMR), have suggested a “sharp improvement” recently. There have been reports which claim that there has been 33 per cent improvement in a decade. Indeed, while government officials, such as PK Taneja, state health commissioner, have pointed towards how Gujarat’s IMR has reduced to 41 in 2011 from 60 in 2001 (see  HERE ), even senior economists such as Prof Bibek Debroy, known to shower praise on the state’s “development model”, have been forced find such claims fake. Prof Debroy admits, “If Gujarat’s benchmark is better performing states, as it should be, and not all-India averages, obviously Gujarat needs to do better” (“Gujarat – The Social Sectors”, October 2012, Indicus White Paper Series). Infant mortality rate is defined as the number of children dying before the age of one. It is counted per thousand. Despite this admission, unfortunately, Prof Debr...

  In its first major decision to take the former state blue-chip public sector undertaking (PSU) out of the red, the Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation (GSPC) has taken a formal decision to withdraw from its most important overseas adventure – Egypt. A well-placed source in the Gujarat government has told Counterview that the GSPC board took the decision to withdraw from Egypt after dilly-dallying on the matter for above a year. “The board met recently. It decided to withdraw following a discussion, in which GSPC managing-director Tapan Ray insisted that withdrawal was essential to bring the GSPC out of the red and also in view of unstable political atmosphere in Egypt”, the source said.

A new documentary, “Dreadlocks Story”, produced and directed by Dr Linda Aïnouche, French freelance research anthropologist with an expertise in cultural heritage and intercultural relationships, has highlighted the little known fact that descendants of people from Indian origin in Jamaica, a Caribbean country, were part of the social movement against slavery, discrimination and colonialism, called Rastafari, which has African roots. It shows how nearly 40,000 Indians became part of forced labour in the sugar plantations in Jamaica carried out by British colonialists between late 19th century and early 20th century. At the same time, it traces the influence of Indian culture, especially “Hindu and Sadhu way of life”, to quote Dr Ainouche, on the Rastafari movement.

  Fresh facts have come to light suggesting that the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for agriculture and allied sectors in Gujarat during 1998-99 to 2012-13 has been 0.82 per cent, and not “around 10 per cent”, as claimed by the state government. A top note, prepared by a senior state bureaucrat who retired as additional chief secretary, Gujarat government, has said in a note that the analysis is based on taking 1998-99 as the base year for calculating CARG. This was contrary to the “wrongful” practice of the Gujarat government to calculate CARG by taking 2000-01, a drought year, as the base year. The note, prepared by CJ Jose, says, even if the CARG is taken by making 2001-02 as the base year, when Narendra Modi came to power, the CARG till 2012-13 comes to 2.93 per cent!