By A Representative As World Bank president Jim Yong Kim, on a two day visit to India, meets Prime Minister Narendra Modi, 24 groups working on environmental, labour and human rights have asked the executive directors of the World Bank ensure that the Bank should ensure that “environmental and social safeguards are not diluted”, as desired by the Government of India.

By A Representative In a sharply-worded editorial, “Global Times” (June 28), a Chinese newspaper published under the auspices of the country’s Communist Party daily “People’s Daily”, has said that failure of India to be a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) at the plenary meeting in Seoul last week was mainly caused by the fact that New Delhi did not go according to the “rules.”

By A Representative After dilly dallying for about a year, the Narendra Modi government will have to divulge all the materials, such as the Cabinet note and file notings, on the basis of which it had decided to come up with the now abandoned ordinance amending the controversial the Land Acquisition Act (LAA), 2013.

By Venkatesh Nayak* In its order dated 20th June, 2016, the Central Information Commission (CIC) has directed the Department of Land Resources (DoLR) in the Union Ministry of Rural Development to disclose all materials such as the Cabinet Note and file notings about the now lapsed Ordinance which sought to amend the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 (RFCTLARR Act). The Ordinance was first promulgated on 31st December 2014 . The RTI application was sent to President’s Secretariat in the first instance as the Ordinance had been promulgated by the Hon’ble President of India. Rashtrapati Bhawan transferred it to DoLR. In response to the RTI application, the DoLR had claimed that it did not have any of the requested information in its custody and transferred my RTI application to the Legislative Dept. and back to Rashtrapati Bhawan. The Legislative Dept. explained in its reply that it was the DoLR which should have ...

By Martin Macwan* The year was 1976 and the month was May. I had appeared for matriculation exam, 11th standard, the last year of the old SSC before the State of Gujarat switched to a new system, 10 + 2, from St. Mary’s High School, Nadiad. I was then not aware of the complexities of the caste system. I had not heard or read much about Dr. B.R. Ambedkar or the works of Savitri and Jyotiba Phule, since it was not part of the curriculum or the Christian missionary educator’s zeal to inform students about the excluded history of India. As a child of 8, I had worked along with my grandmother in the farms of the grandmother of Ashwin Patel, my friend, located in Chhintiyawad, Nadiad. Studying in class 3, Ashwin and I were great friends and competitors; we would compete in getting best scores in mathematics, though I was always the topper. At the farm, however, while I worked, Ashwin would sit on the pile of dry hey of bajra, watching me work, unable to play as we did in the school. I was se...

Kamiben tells her woe By Pankti Jog* “Pankhi eno malo mukine ave to eney vasamu lage chhe…ame to amara ghar-bar chhodine aavyahiie.. amne vasamu nahi lagtu hoy?” (Birds too miss their nests when they fly off… We had to leave our houses, our village... Imagine how much we must be missing it.)

By A Representative There is flutter in Himachal Pradesh over the manner in which Municipal Corporation Dharamsala (MCD) forcefully eviction around1,500 people -- 300 families -- from well-known hill station Dharmasala's 35-year-old slum area, Charan Khad. Not only the families were ousted, they were "refused" even rented accommodation.

By Venkatesh Nayak*  Advocates of the Right to Information (RTI) and the media have reported that Parliament gave its approval to the RTI Bill that was introduced earlier this year. According to media reports , several amendments were incorporated in the Bill during the debate in Parliament. But for the long drawn ethnic conflict, Sri Lanka would have been the second country in South Asia to enact a national RTI law if efforts made in 2003-04 had reached fruition. As we wait for clarity on the nature of amendments passed, as well as the assent of the President to the Bill, Sri Lanka becomes the 108th country in the world to pass a national level information access law. That leaves only Bhutan in South Asia without a national RTI law. Notably, countries without RTI laws are becoming a smaller and smaller minority on the planet. CHRI congratulates the Members of Parliament, the Government and RTI advocates in civil society and the mass media for working together to craft a law that g...

By Sagar Rabari* The Gujarat government decision to merge, through a Development Plan (DP), 104 villages of five talukas, Olpad, Choryasi, Kamrej, Palsana and Mangrol of Surat district, into the Surat Urban Development Authority (SUDA) is being seen as a murky move in which the politician-builder-bureaucrat syndicate would make huge real estate gains to the tune of Rs 38,000 crore.

By Jitendra Rathod* Should the government reserve and recruit all categories for the job of sweeping? Are we ready for this type of reservation in the sweeping occupation? The Human Development Research Centre (HDRC), situated in the St Xavier’s College campus in Ahmedabad, had given an advertisement for the recruitment of sweepers in its office. It said that priority would be given to general category for the post. On June 22, 2016, few fundamentalists banged into the HDRC office and asked for forgiveness from the organization for such advertisement. The group of unknown persons rushed in the office and broke windows panes. The advertisement was meant for equality, seeking all social categories to come forward for the sweeper’s occupation. But fundamentalists could tolerate this notice. They protested, wondering how upper castes could be asked to do the sweeping job. This incident proved that there are caste-based biases in the minds of dominant culture. They see sweeping as inferio...

By A Representative Top human rights activists Teesta Setalvad and Javed Anand, whose NGO Sabrang Trust’s Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) license was cancelled on June 16, apprehend that the powerful Modi government might use “extra-legal means” to suppress their activities.

By Venkatesh Nayak* While appearing in a 2nd appeal matter before the Central Information Commission (CIC), earlier this year, I came across an instance of gross and continuing non-compliance of its orders by the Income Tax Department . Upon bringing this trend to the notice of the CIC, the CIC wrote to the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) in April this year to ensure compliance with its orders. I have recently come across a month old direction issued by the CBDT to all JSs and Commissioners of Income Tax directing them to ensure compliance with the CIC’s orders. Background While assisting the Association for Democratic Reforms in a 2nd appeal matter in February this year, I learnt of a Full Bench decision of the CIC from 2010 in the matter of Rakesh Agarwal vs CBDT where the Income Tax Department was directed as to place the names of all organisations and entities that enjoyed IT exemption in the public domain. The CIC gave CBDT a period of 8 months to complete this big task. In ...

By A Representative Making a scathing attack on the BJP government in Gujarat, a well-known activist-turned-politician has said the recent state-sponsored child enrolment drive, kanya kelavni, is a “complete failure”, with more than 50 per cent drop in in the total number of children admitted in state government schools in Ahmedabad alone.

In this concluding part of the report, we reproduce the case studies selected from a wide number of water structures that NGO Samerth supported to build in Rapar taluka of Kutch district. These water structures helped the rural poor fight drought in the peak of summer this year. The photographs, clicked by Samerth team in May 2016, are a testimony of the success of the massive intervention: *** Chitrod gram panchayat has a total population of 5820 people out of which 1494 live in the five vandhs around it. The population of the entire panchayat consists of Patels, Muslims, Harijans and Kolis. Most Koli families live in the vandhs. The total number of cattle in the village is 4688. Out of the total 1300 families, only 897 have tap connection in their homes. The Narmada water supply is erratic, as of May 2016 it was once in 7 days in village and 15 days in vandhs. In 2014, Samerth undertook the renovation of its Gam Talav (village pond – to be accessed by everyone) in line with a high de...

By Fr Cedric Prakash sj* June 20th is World Refugee Day and it emphasizes the need and importance ‘to honour the courage, strength and determination of women, men and children who are forced to flee their homeland under threat of persecution, conflict and violence’. There are an estimated 60 million refugees in the world today and an unknown number of forcibly displaced persons in several countries, like India. This year the UN Refugee Agency – UNHCR-( www.unhcr.org ) has launched the “#WithRefugees petition asking people from across the globe to send a message to governments that they must urgently work together and do their fair share for refugees by:　ensuring that every refugee child gets an education. ensuring that every refugee family has somewhere safe to live. ensuring every refugee can work or learn new skills to make a positive contribution to their community. This is all easier said than done! Many Governments and other vested interests really give refugees and forcibl...

By A Representative In what may turn out to a major upheaval in India’s economic governance, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Raghuram Rajan has declared that he will not continue with his job after his term ends on September 4, and will return to the University of Chicago, from where he has been on “leave”, setting aside all speculation around him.

Samerth, an Ahmedabad-based non-profit development organization that works in different parts of India for accelerating a humane, sustainable and equitable society, is currently involved in areas of education, water security, women’s empowerment and livelihood in Rapar block of Kutch district, Gujarat. The following report prepared by the Samerth team shows how empowerment has come to the marginalized communities because of its interventions: *** The year 2016 has turned out to be one of the hottest year in the history of Gujarat. In May, when the Samerth team decided to visit various water structures that Samerth has supported to build in Rapar(Kutch district), temperatures were as high as 48 degrees Celsius. The distance from Ahmedabad to Gagodar town in Rapar is roughly 275 kms. Rapar is a little known block in Kutch district – the current flavor of Gujarat tourism. But Rapar is not a tourist hub. It is a dry, saline, arid zone – also known as the dark zone since the ground water e...

By A Representative In an unusual Opinion article (June 16), titled “Mr Modi, Don't Patent Cow Urine”, the New York Times (NYT) has wondered why the BJP government, which released India’s first National Intellectual Property Rights Policy last month, is calling for “protecting traditional remedies like cow urine.”

By A Representative The declaration by Guntur district collector Kantilal Dande that Hyderabad Central University  (HCU) research scholar Rohith Vemula, who committed suicide allegedly because of intense political pressure, was indeed a Dalit, is all set to create a fresh flutter across India, with demands being raised tot take action against those who were responsible for it.

Soni Sori By A Representative Soni Sori, Chhattisgarh adivasi woman leader of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), has begun an indefinite fast outside Sukma collectorate because she and her team have been prevented from visiting a village where a young woman was killed in an encounter that villagers say is fake.

By A Representative Baba Ramdev calling homosexuality a "disease" and a “mental disorder” against the backdrop of the gruesome killings in Orlando, in which 49 were killed, has sparked a row among some of the most well-known votaries of Hindutva joining those who stand by LGBT rights.

Sydney Consul general By A Representative In what is being interpreted by the Indian diaspora across Australia as “not a very bright event” for the community, the Indian consulate in Sydney has been fined $10,620 over “unfair dismissal” of an employee, who claims to be a whistleblower, Hitendra Kumar, an immigrant working with it as a driver.

By A Representative Suggesting that there is no ghettoisation in Gujarat cities, including in the state's cultural capital, Vadodara, Union urban development minister Venkaiah Naidu believes that the Constitution – especially the right to equality before law and prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race and caste – “takes care of these things.”

By A Representative Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his visit to the US, appears to have given enough indication to the non-resident Indian (NRI) community that he has no love lost for Republican presidential aspirant Donald Trump, many of whose Indian critics often refer him as “American Modi.”

Site of Subansiri hydro project in Arunachal By A Representative Have India's well-known anti-dam activists led by Medha Patkar and her Narmada Bachao Andolan has found an unusual ally in the new BJP rulers in Assam? A multi-country site , claiming to focus mainly on Asia's water crisis and its relationship with climate change, has revealed that the Assam government has vowed to oppose big dams.

Indira Jaising By A Representative Taking strong exception to Government of India decision to suspend top lawyer Indira Jaising-led NGO Lawyers’ Collective’s Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) license to obtain funds from abroad to take up human rights cases in India, two well-known advocacy groups have said it is being “punished” for taking up the case of several human rights defenders of India.

By Venkatesh Nayak* Readers will remember my RTI intervention circulated in April 2016 about the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation’s (NHPC’s) refusal to disclose information about the return (and not buyback) of hydel projects in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). NHPC is a profit-making public sector enterprise under the Government of India (GoI) and runs several hydel projects across the country. Earlier this year, when I asked the Union Ministry of Power for all correspondence with the Government of J&K (GoJ&K) relating to these projects, the Ministry washed its hands off the issue by transferring the RTI application to the NHPC which is responsible for the execution, maintenance and management of these projects. NHPC invoked Section 8(1)(d) of the Central Right to Information Act, 2005 (Central RTI Act) claiming that disclosure would “affect” its commercial interests. Later on I submitted a first appeal to the NHPC’s First Appellate Authority (FAA) contesting the reply o...