There is a flutter among voluntary organisations in Gujarat, as elsewhere. With the change of guards at the Centre, there is a rising apprehension about what would be the government's new policy towards civil society, in Gujarat as well as in India. Would the NGOs’ space shrink? Would they have to make political compromises with the powers-that-be for the sake of survival? What kind of structural changes they might have to undergo in case they have to survive in the new atmosphere? What would happen to sources of foreign funding, on which many NGOs depend? These are some of the most common questions currently being asked by several leading members of civil society, which have involved themselves in different types of activities, developmental or rights-based, across Gujarat. Informal meetings have been held. Despite their differences in approach, all of them agree: That there is a need to find fresh ways to work in the new situation. Without any doubt, the situation in the country ...

SNAM campaign for communal unity  Gujarat's powerful officialdom is learnt to have encouraged Hindu-Muslim divide as a deliberate policy while resettling Ahmedabad’s around 10,000 slum-dwellers, affected by the Sabarmati riverfront project, begun being implemented in 2005 to “beautify” the city. Bringing this to light in her latest research paper, “Municipal Politics, Court Sympathy and Housing Rights: A Post-Mortem of Displacement and Resettlement under the Sabarmati Riverfront Project, Ahmedabad” (May 2014), Renu Desai of the CEPT University has said, the “policy” was instrumental in resettling Hindu and Muslim slum-dwellers in segregated localities, far from the city.

Top UK-based consultants Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu’s Indian professionals’ report, “Survey on Business Regulatory Environment for Manufacturing – State Level Assessment”, prepared for the Planning Commission, may have rated Gujarat as No 2 state – next to Haryana – on important industry-related yardsticks which attract investment (read  HERE ). However, a study of detailed inter-state comparison of the report suggests that Gujarat ranks 16th among 20 major states in obtaining environmental compliance for establishing enterprises, and 15th in getting environmental compliance to them to kick-start operation.

A book eulogizing Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi’s “core governance” was launched in Ahmedabad amidst key speakers, while praising the Modi model, refusing to recall once how the man who ruled the state for the last 13 years has handled Gujarat riots or “fake” encounters. The speakers consisted of right-wing columnist Gunwant Shah, Times of India group’s Navgujarat Samay editor Ajay Umath, and author Uday Mahurkar, editor, India Today, Ahmedabad. They seemed not so keen to recall why the riots continued for three long months in 2002, what all Modi did (or did not do) to “stop” them, and how he has confronted – effectively or ineffectively – the post-riots impact on Gujarat society.

  The All-India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE), operating under the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, in its recent report has suggested that Gujarat’s gross enrollment ratio (GER) in higher education, which was 21.3 per cent of the population in the age group 18-23 in 2010-11, went down to 17.6 per cent a year later – in 2011-12. Worse, Gujarat’s GER ranking fell from ninth among 20 major states in 2010-11 to 13th in 2011-12. The AISHE report also indicates that while Gujarat’s GER performance was above national average (19.4 per cent of the population in the 18-23 age group) in 2010-11, in 2011-12, the GER nationally improved to 20.4 per cent, which pushed Gujarat below the national average.

Is the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s top dream project – Gujarat International Finance Tec-city (GIFT) -- all set to be scaled down?  Proposed as India’s premier financial hub for more than Rs 78,000 crore, questions began asked about its viability ever since it was first announced in 2007. If earlier only bureaucrats in the state capital Gandhinagar doubted it would be anything more than a real estate hub, now it transpires that the man who promised to make GIFT a big success has questioned its viability.