By A Representative In an year-end commentary, premier British business daily, “Financial Times”, has termed prime minister Narendra Modi's dream to redouble “India’s efforts to rival China by turning into a global manufacturing hub” as “important to his country’s future” but insists, it is “difficult to achieve”. Written by James Crabtree in the column “Inside Business” and titled “Modi faces uphill battle in mission to see India rival China”, the commentary arrives at this conclusion by saying that “India’s manufacturing frailty is well documented.”

By Gagan Sethi*  This was my first experience in sexual harassment at workplace. It happened in 1983 at Golana, which shot into prominence in 1986 because of the brutal attack on our Dalit colleagues leading to the death of four. The issues were getting land for housing, minimum wages, and refusal to accept insult and humiliation suffered by them for generations. But more about this later. In 1983 we set up a cooperative in Golana. Situated in the Bhal region of Anand district in Central Gujarat, it is here that river Sabarmati meets the Gulf of Khambhat. The land allocated to us for running the cooperative was along the river. It was part saline and part productive. We decided to grow vegetables, and also some fodder, and get women to take control of the initiative . The target group was Dalits of the village. After much discussion, we agreed that women were more capable in growing and taking care of vegetables. It was a difficult challenge for us to bring in substantial number ...

By Satyakam Mehta Despite recent outcry against “militant” Hindu groups becoming increasingly aggressive after the BJP-led coming to power, and sharp criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for failing to act from international media, there is virtually no let down in aggressive stance of Sangh Parivar factions. In a new development, a group of activists said to belong to the Bajrang Dal violently attacked two cinema halls in heart of Ahmedabad, Gujarat’s business capital, to “protest” against Aamir Khan starrer “PK”.

Medha Patkar By A Representative The apex body of tens of people’s organizations across India, National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) has termed the Narendra Modi government’s reported decision to come up with an amendment to water down the Right to Fair Compensation, Resettlement and Rehabilitation, Transparency in Land Acquisition Act, 2013 in the form of an ordinance as nothing but an effort push an “anti-poor corporate agenda”. NAPM is led by top social activist Medha Patkar.

By A Representative In one of the sharpest comments in the recent past on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the powerful American daily, "The New York Times," has chose the Christmas (December 25) to editorially declare its opposition to the way in which he has been dealing with the whole issue of conversion. The daily’s editorial has said, “Hope is in danger of crumbling that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would rein in the divisive agenda of his militant Hindu-nationalist supporters and allow India to concentrate on the important work of economic reform.”

Sanjoy Hazarika interacting with NGOs By A Representative Sanjoy Hazarika, brain behind “floating clinics” of Assam, has advised Gujarat-based non-government organizations (NGOs) not to accept any government interference while working for the welfare of the people. Answering a flurry of questions from top Gujarat NGO representatives on “success” of his experiment and relations with Assam government, Hazarika, who currently runs as many as 16 boat clinics in Brahmaputra river in a dozen districts in order to reach farthest of the areas, said, “When the state health minister offered support, my condition was, we would accept government funds only one condition: No interference in our work.”

By A Representative In a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi after a gap of about six months, top British journal, The Economist’s latest issue (December 20) has once again reminded its readers that Modi remains a controversial leader for his “failure” in 2002, when as chief minister of Gujarat, he failed to “avert a massacre of Muslims.” Insisting that the hostility is born of the ideology that militant freedom fighter Vinayak Savarkar "spawned”, the influential British journal says, Modi “has never apologised for the massacre.” Taking a dig at Modi, the journal recalls how he sought to “regret” the riots once – telling a news agency interviewer that he is as sorry for the killings as he is while “seeing a puppy run over in the street”.

By Fr Cedric Prakash sj* No one can deny that Narendra Modi is very adept with ‘hunting with the hound and running with the hare’ - the latest being the ‘bogey of conversion’ which is raising plenty of heat and kicking plenty of dust all over. A clever ploy indeed! A peep at some of the actions and utterances done in very strategic ways will provide one with an inkling of their meticulous plans to defocus from the real issues which grip the country and simultaneously target the minorities through systematic denigration.

By Gagan Sethi*  This is about Khoda Sava, a young Dalit belonging to the Vankar sub-caste, who worked as a bonded labourer in a village near Vadgam in Banskantha district of North Gujarat. The year was 1982. Khoda had taken a loan of Rs 7,000 from the village sarpanch, a powerful landlord doing money-lending as his side business. Khoda, who had taken the loan for marriage, was landless. Normally, villagers would mortgage their land if they took loan from the sarpanch. But Khoda had no land. He had no option but to enter into a bondage agreement with the sarpanch in order to repay the loan. Working in bondage on the sarpanch’s field meant that he would be paid Rs 1,200 per annum, from which his loan amount with interest would be deducted. He was also obliged not to leave the sarpanch’s field and work as daily wager somewhere else. At the same time, Khoda was offered meal once a day, and his wife job as agricultural worker on a “priority basis”. That year, I was working as secretary...

Vasanti Vasava By A Representative Senior Gujarat human rights activist Manjula Pradeep has alleged that frantic efforts are underway to ensure that those responsible for the mysterious death of Vasanti Amarsinh Vasava, 28-years-old tribal woman police constable between November 24 and 26 in South Gujarat go scot-free. In a statement, Pradeep, who heads NGO Navsarjan Trust and was the chief campaigner for the arrest of the main accused in the mysterious death of Vasava, said, “It seems that caste factor is ruling in the Gujarat police department”, and hence one is “not sure that the family members of the deceased tribal woman constable would be able to get any justice.”

By A Representative Gujarat’s most well-known Gandhian Chunibhai Vaidya passed away on Friday at his residence in Gandhi Ashram premises in Ahmedabad. Born on September 2, 1918 in a small village in Patan district of North Gujarat, Sander, he lived in Gandhi Ashram during the later days of his life. A freedom fighter and variously described as an "old-style" Sarvodaya activist, who participated in Vinoba Bhave’s Bhoodan movement asking landlords to “selflessly” give away land to the tiller, Vaidya was one of the foremost supporters of Jay Prakash Narayan’s total revolution and was opposed the Emergency imposed by the Indira Gandhi government.

By Venkatesh Nayak* The print media has been reporting serious lapses in the implementation of the Right to Education Act, 2009 (RTE Act) over the last few months. A major problem is the reluctance of some State Governments and elite schools to fulfill the obligations towards students belonging to economically weaker sections (EWS) of society. Pls see detailed articles on this subject published in “Outlook” and The Economic and Political Weekly (EPW): 1) http://www.outlookindia.com/article/Colour-Coded-Discrimination/291806 . A copy of this article was attached to my RTI application as proof of information available in the public domain about discrimination against economically weaker sections (EWS) children. 2) http://www.epw.in/system/files/pdf/2014_49/38/Quotas_under_the_Right_to_Education.pdf . After reading these articles I filed a right to information (RTI) application with the Ministry of Human Resources Development (MoHRD). Initially the MoHRD transferred my RTI application in...

By Rohit Prajapati, Krishnakant* The BJP’s Election 2014 Manifesto categorically assured the industrialists that policies to promote industrial growth will take precedence over those that ensure environmental protection. This is consistent with the “Gujarat Model of Development,” which led Gujarat State to become number one in pollution. To make operational this commitment to industrialists, on 29 August 2014 the Modi Government appointed the T.S.R. Subramanian committee to review six environmental laws. Officially known as the “High-Level Committee constituted for review of Environment and Forests Laws,” the committee was tasked with submitting an exhaustive appraisal of six environmental laws to the Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change (MoEF&CC) within two months, with subsequent a one month extension. The specific laws were: [1] The Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, [2] The Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980; [3] The Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972; [4] The Water ...

Savjibhai Dholakia By Satyakam Mehta Meet Savjibhai Dholakia, son of a humble agriculturist from Amreli district of Saurashtra region of Gujarat, now heading an industrial trading empire worth Rs 6,000 crore. At a time when top Indian industry captains are still trying to work out modalities of corporate social responsibility (CSR), seeking consultants' and NGOs' "help" for a job which they think has thrust upon them by law , Dholakia has done it without perhaps having heard about it: He has “gifted” his 1,200 employees cars, houses and jewellery to their wives as Diwali bonus!

By Gagan Sethi* The ingenious means of exploitation in tradition-bound villages of Bhal of Cambay taluka could well remind you of the feudal system. One such tradition was of members of so-called upper caste in the area — the Durbars— paying money to members of another caste — Bharwads —to steal bullock carts of any Vankar who had acquired this asset (also a sign of economic and social mobility). After the initial shock, he would get the message via community elders (called mahetars) that if he needed his cart back, he should visit the durbar who would ask him to pay Rs1,500 to Rs3,000 in return for the cart. We heard of such an incident on one of our visits to Pandad village where we were to train a youth group in 1980. We told the group they should file a police complaint. The nearest police station being Cambay (now Khambhat), we asked if there isn’t a rule of law. There is, we were told. One has to seek permission of the durbar to go to the police station. After a lot of cajoling a...

By A Representative The demand for recognition of forest rights, as per the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006, is starting to take a new turn in India’s tribal important tribal regions: Apart from the need to ensure tribals their rights over the forest land, human rights organizations have begun to increasingly insist on the need to recognize the rights of Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (OTFDs) by “converting” forest and unsurveyed villages into revenue villages. This came to light in a list of demands put forward by Odisha rights bodies on the world human rights day, December 10. In a memorandum it prepared for submission to government officials also put forward several other demands which pertained both for tribal and non-tribal dwellers.

BJP poster promising no privatization of water By A Representative In a clear example of why privatisation of a basic service such as water supply is not an easy option, the Madhya Pradesh government has been forced to take a step backward from its ambitious plan to privatize water supply in different towns and cities of the state, with a top NGO claiming credit for the success. The voluntary organization working in Badwani, Madhya Pradesh, Manthan Adhyayan Kendra, which has been in the forefront of advocacy against water privatization, has suggested in a statement, things reached a flashpoint only during the municipal elections held in November 2014.

Medha Patkar By A Representative In an important development, the newly-constituted social justice bench of the Supreme Court has heard the powerful anti-dam body, Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA’s) petition challenging the decision of the Narmada Control Authority (NCA) in June 2014 to raise the height of the Sardar Sarovar dam by 17 metres. NBA leader Medha Patkar, calling the NCA decision “unlawful”, in a statement said the constitution of the special social justice bench was a welcome move, adding, “2.5 lakh Narmada dam oustees await justice and guarantee of no submergence without lawful rehabilitation.”

MS Sathyu By A Representative “Garm Hawa”, one of the best known films made on the theme of Partition, was characterized by veteran BJP leader LK Advani way back in 1974 as having been funded by Pakistan. Revealing this on the occasion of the re-release of the film last week, its director MS Sathyu said, how political leaders could be “so irresponsible to make such statements without even seeing the film.” Snapped in the backdrop of travails of a Muslim family caught in the midst of Partition, Sathyu also revealed how Shiv Sena pressured him not to release of the film.

By A Representative The International Business Times (IBT), Australia, has reported that Australia's uranium deal with India has come under severe scrutiny following warning of a former Aussie chief atomic watchdog that the treaty “did not have all the safeguards necessary to prevent India from fuelling its nuclear bombs." The top business paper said, while the treaties committee of the Australian Parliament was "urged" to endorse the deal signed by Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in September, enabling exports of uranium to begin, things seem to be changing now.

Slum area Bapa Sitaram Kamdar Nagar By A Representative While Gujarat government put in place what it called a “policy for in-situ rehabilitation of slums situated on public land” through a government resolution (GR) on July 18, 2013, latest indications from Ahmedabad reveal that it remains on paper for large sections of slum-dwellers for one-and-a-half years after it was promulgated by the state urban development department. In a glaring instance, as many as 69 Valmiki Dalit households, living in makeshift accommodations for nearly 15 years in the midst of posh Jodhpur area of western Ahmedabad, have been threatened that either they clear the area, or they would forcibly removed, the cost of which would be charged from them.

By A Representative Even as the State Bank of India has said that it would take a final call for the “controversial” decision on Rs 6,200 crore (USD 1 billion) loan to Adani Group in the next couple of months or so in order to fund its costly Australian mining project, already rejected by several of the banks abroad, the prestigious British weekly “Economist”(December 6) has pointed towards how the non-performing debts of India’s powerful public sector banks have risen to disturbing proportions, and may hit India’s overall growth rate.

By Gagan Sethi*  In the adivasi-dominated villages of South Gujarat, Operation Flood of the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) and the Jesuits’ social work centres have been in existence for long. In 1979, buffalos were sought to be promoted in that region as an alternative to local cows, which were found to “less productive”. The Jesuits would organize doodh mandalis, and banks would reluctantly give loans. It was a long saga in the development of intensive dairy development. It all started with milk being collected by doodh mandalis. They then started taking it to chilling plants. Over time, dairies came up in Surat and Bharuch in the 1980s. Our brief was to train village veterinarians, who could help provide first-level support to animal husbandry programme. We tried an experiment of a joint dairy farming cooperative in the remote village of Bal, near Malsamot in Bharuch district. Though it was ultimately a failure, the idea was romantic. It was based on the understanding t...

By A Representative Social media is agog with a BJP poster in which the party's symbol, lotus, is in white and name of the party has been written in green. Says Himanshu Trivedi, who first put the poster on the Facebook, "Proof of the pudding is in its eating -- see the poster with white lotus, BJP written in green ... these people can sell 'whatever' to garner votes under false pretext." Points out Vistasp Hodiwala,"The party symbol goes from saffron to white. The name stands out on a glorious green background. This ingenuous customisation of the party is ostensibly to win the elections in J&K." And observes Sanjeev Bhatt, suspended from services by Gujarat government by refusing to favour Narendra Modi's line on 2002 Gujarat riots: "Truly, have these guys decided at all on the upper limit for political shamelessness? Is there any code they abide by? For I see no evidence of this in their breathless shenanigans every single day."

By A Representative Several people's organisations of Gujarat have asked the Gujarat government to begin public discussion while drafting rules of the new Land Acquisition Act 2013, instead of confining the effort to draft it by a small section. Pointing out that after “many efforts and long deliberations” the previous UPA government passed the Right to Fair Compensation & Transparency in Land Acquisition & Rehabilitation & Resettlement Act, 2013 to rectify the past wrongs to farmers, in a statement they have expressed the fear that Act may not be implemented in Gujarat at all.

By Satyakam Mehta Crowdfunding, an internet-based practice of collecting money for small projects or ventures by raising small amounts from large number of individuals, is picking up as a craze in Gujarat’s penny-wise IT savvy youngsters. While many consider it as a way to earn a fast buck, one just needs to upload a project idea on a crowdfunding website, explain its concept, specify the funding you require, and just wait for individuals to transfer money to your bank account.

By Jitendra Rathod*  Manav Garima, in collaboration with Human Development and Research Centre, conducted a survey on current status of the sanitation system of individual households in two slum settlements of Ahmedabad – Shankarbhuvan and Nagorivad. After scrutinizing the current status of the sanitation system in both the areas, following aspects were taken into account for further action: Status of individual toilets, status of drainage facility, availability of electricity, and usage of individual toilets.  As seen in Table 1, there are in all 1,447 individual households in the two slum settlements, with a population of 7,493. A further breakup suggests that Nagorivad has a population of 1,677 and 317 households, while Shankarbhuvan has a population of 5,816 and 1,130 households. Individual Toilets Table 2 depicts number of households that have individual toilets, and number of households that do not have them. In the two slum settlements surveyed, 916 households do not ha...

By Venkatesh Nayak* The South African Supreme Court of Appeal has recently ruled that Arcelor Mittal, that country’s steel production giant, make environmental information in its custody accessible to the people. On November 26, 2014, the Court dismissed the appeal filed by Arcelor Mittal, South Africa (AMSA) challenging the judgement of the High Court which directed it to disclose information about its compliance with environmental regulations to an NGO. Arcelor Mittal is headed by Lakshmi Mittal of Indian origin, who was dubbed one of the richest men in the United Kingdom a few years ago. What was this case all about? In December 2011, Vaal Environmental Justice Alliance (VEJA) filed an information request with Arcelor Mittal under the Promotion of Access to Information Act, 2000 (PAIA) demanding access to their Environmental Master Plan including details of how the Vanderbijlpark site would be rehabilitated. Later in February 2012, VEJA filed a second request under PAIA demanding a ...

Amit Shah By Satyakam Mehta Well-informed sources in the Gujarat government have told me that “all-out efforts are on” to ensure that cops involved in the fake encounter cases are released on bail one after another. The reason, said the sources, is that they could be “quite effective” in helping “influence” and “work through” the prosecution to ensure that the cases begin losing its importance and fall through. A senior official requesting anonymity, said, “No stone is being left unturned to see to it that the the cases become weak.” He added, if so far three officers have been free – with two of them having been given plum posts – days are not far off when “others may follow suit.”