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Showing posts from October, 2014

It’s statue for tourism industry, seeks to promote disunity, displace tribals

By Rohit Prajapati, Trupti Shah We activists of Gujarat oppose and condemn the construction of ‘Statue of Unity’; because it will be a statue that will divide and remove the tribal people form their land, forest and livelihood. It is a structure that will be 182 meters (392 feet) tall of Sardar Patel planned near the Sardar Sarovar Dam by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The statue will be placed directly facing the Sardar Sarovar dam at a distance of 3.2 km at the Sadhu Bet. Surprisingly and shockingly, the Government of Gujarat has allocated Rs 500 crore in the 2014-15 budget and the Government of India also has allocated Rs 200 crore in the 2014-2015 budget for the Statue of Unity project by presuming that project does not requires environment clearance from the concerned authorities. More recently, the Government of Gujarat issued a work order of Rs. 2,979 crore to Larsen and Toubro for the construction of the Statue of Unity. The Government of Gujarat website states, “A monument, tha

Conservativism behind poor participation of Gujarat women in non-domestic duties

By Rajiv Shah  A new National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO’s) report, “Participation of Women in Specified Activities along with Domestic Duties”, finalized in September 2014, has revealed that a higher percentage of Gujarat women are driven by the conservative socio-religious framework of their families and society compared to most Indian states. Based on the survey it carried out between July 2011 and June 2012, the NSSO report has found that, in the 15+ age, 91.9 per cent of Gujarat’s rural and 94.4 per cent of urban women spend most of the time in domestic duties, which is around the same as the national average of 91.7 and 92.2 per cent, respectively. However, this does not tell the full story. Of these women identified as being involved domestic duty full time in Gujarat, 54.8 per cent in rural areas and 62.5 per cent in urban areas said they were doing it because there is no other member to carry out the domestic duties. And – and this is worrisome – 18.7 per cent of rural

Higher proportion of Gujarat workers live without social security benefits: NSSO

By Rajiv Shah  The latest National Sample Survey (NSS) report, “Informal Sector and Conditions of Employment in India”, finalized in July 2014, and based on survey between July 2011 and June 2012, has gone a long way to suggest extremely sorry state of affairs of workers in Gujarat, especially in what has been called the non-agricultural sector, as also in the sector identified AGEGC ([ag]riculture sector [e]xcluding [g]rowing of [c]rops). Seeking to analyze the status of affairs of workers with a special focus on the informal sector — in which 72.4 per cent of the total workers employed in the non-agricultural and AGEGC units are employed in India – the data show that the situation is particularly appalling in Gujarat, where 75.1 per cent belong to the informal sector out of the total workforce employed in the non-agricultural and AGEGC units. The NSS report finds that not only average wages (casual and salaries combined) being paid in Gujarat – Rs 268 per day, as against the all-Indi

Ahmedabad zero waste by 2031? Report is silent on plight of sweepers

The report By Jitendra Rathod*  “A Road Map for Zero Waste Ahmedabad City – A Visionary Document to Guide Ahmedabad towards Becoming a Resource Efficient and Zero Waste City by 2031”, a recently released official document , is an evidence of the casteist mindset of the Ahmedabad Municipal Commission (AMC) administration. The document has been financed and commissioned jointly by the AMC and the United Nations Centre for Regional Development (UNCRD). The document addresses several concerns of waste and waste management – except the safety and better health of the sweepers! The title page of the document is sufficient to prove the casteist mindset of the AMC administration. The document claims to be “visionary”, but the sweepers will continue to collect the garbage, dust, filth of the city by unclean way. The title page itself has photographs of sweepers without any safety devices – and no eyebrow has been raised on this. Landfill sites and handling of garbage have been shown to be ca

Privatisation of defence production: Does transparency regime gets curtailed?

By Venkatesh Nayak* The Ministry of Home Affairs has stubbornly refused to disclose the criteria for marking official records ‘Top Secret’, ‘Secret’ and ‘Confidential’. I demanded publication of the secretive Manual of Departmental Security Instructions (MoDSI) which contain the classification criteria and procedures under the Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act) a few years ago and failed in my efforts. That rankles, as the Central Information Commission refused to order its disclosure, despite hearing strong arguments based on legal concepts and international practices in support of disclosure. However, the Department of Defence Production (DDP) of the Ministry of Defence has laid down the criteria for and procedure for classifying records as ‘Top Secret’, ‘Secret’ and ‘Confidential’ in a manual publicised in June this year for – believe it or not – private sector companies and firms that obtain licenses for producing defence-related commodities. One can access the Security Manua

Mithi Virdi N-plant project: Expert Appraisal Committee fails to reflect on anomalies

Villagers protest against proposed N-power plant By Krishnakant, Rohit Prajapati, Swati Desai* The summary record of the 17th Meeting of the Expert Appraisal Committee (Nuclear), held to examine nuclear projects attracting Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification, 2006, held on May 6, 2014 is now available. Our perusal suggests that it ignores some major points about the violation of the basic procedural norms while conducting the Environmental Public Hearing (EPH) on March 5, 2013 for the proposed 6,000 MW Mithi Virdi Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) to be built by the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL). We have earlier also stated that the EPH was illegal as it was held on the basis of an incomplete EIA report and had also serious anomalies; further, serious anomalies happened even during and after the EPH was held. The minutes of the EPH are not in the standard format as they are usually prepared. Instead, they read like a news report, with the proceedings summarized

Swacch India campaign: How about cleaning up illegal solid waste mountain?

By Rohit Prajapati* Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Swachh Bharat Mission on October 2, 2014 and in his message on his website, he says, “A clean India is the best tribute we can pay to Bapu when we celebrate his 150th birth anniversary in 2019. […] Today, I appeal to everyone, particularly political and religious leadership, mayors, sarpanchs and captains of industry to plan and wholeheartedly engage in the task of cleaning your homes, work places, villages, cities and surroundings.” I want to remind Modi that earlier as the Chief Minister of Gujarat, he had launched similar campaign Nirmal Gujarat – 2007′ and made tall claims during that campaign. But reality is best seen in Ahmedabad at illegal solid waste dumping site at Gyaspur-Pirana – a waste mountain near Sabarmati River adjacent to the main road. Modi should know the basic facts as revealed in the ‘Report of the Task Force on Waste to Energy’ dated 12 May 2014 by the Planning Commission of India. This report states

Will National Intelligence Grid make voluntary disclosure of some information?

By Venkatesh Nayak* In June 2011, the Government of India insulated the National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) from the ordinary obligation of transparency, applicable to other public authorities, by notifying it as an ‘exempt organisation’ under Section 24 of the Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act). Information furnished by security and intelligence organisations to the Government of India is exempt from disclosure under this provision. These agencies have a duty to only furnish information about allegations of human rights violation or allegations of corruption when people make a formal request. In fact, information about allegations of human rights violation is to be disclosed only with the approval of the Central Information Commission (CIC). NATGRID, along with the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), was the most recent entrant to the list of organisations placed under the exempt list. Interestingly, on September 22, 2014, the Mini