By Darshini Mahadevia* Ren,u Desai** Urban development and planning, two important pillars of India’s economic growth and development pathway, were given importance in the ‘New Urban Agenda’ adopted at the Habitat III conference in 2016 to help achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11 – safe, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable cities. India’s urban development journey over the last two decades has coincided with increasing marginalisation, exclusion, conflict, and everyday violence in the cities. This violence has gone unnoticed and unanalysed in the urban planning and policy-making world. The economic reforms of 1991 increased urban inequalities, which have worsened through inequitable urban planning. As an instrument of planning, the Master Plan has also deemed many areas of the city to be illegal and, as a result, the Indian state has engineered the “elite capture” of urban spaces. It has also subverted pro-poor provisions of Master Plans. The poor thus find spaces in the ci

The Right to Food Campaign (RFT), Jharkhand, prepared detailed reports on the starvation death of two more persons in the state, Motka Manjhi and Ramachandra Munda. Text of the reports: Motka Manjhi: On 3rd June 2019 a fact-finding team consisting of Mr. Ashrfi Nand Prasad, Mr Prathyush S, both from Right to Food Campaign (RTF), Mr. Sushanto Soren (Lokmanch Dumka), Adv. Samyul Soren and Mr. Kaushal Kumar from People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) visited Gram Oopar Rangini, Panchayat Asanjhor, post Asanjhor, Jama Dumka of Late Motka Manjhi, who died on 22nd May 2019. During the visit the team met the widow and two sons of the diseased. The team also met the close relatives, friends and neighbours of late Motka Manjhi. From the visit we understood that Motka Manjhi was a Malpaharia tribe (one of the PVTGs) and died on 22nd May 2019. According to his wife and relatives, Motka had never complained about any illness or ailments and was not under any treatment. His death was of sudden.

Rajesh Sondharva By Venkatesh Nayak* Readers may remember recent news reports of the alleged murder of 19-year old Rajesh @ Raju Sondharva a resident of Manekwada village in Rajkot district of Gujarat. Rajesh who belongs to the Dalit community was fighting for justice in a criminal case involving the murder of his father, the Late Nanjibhai Meghabhai Sondharva. In March 2018, Nanjibhai was allegedly murdered for exposing corruption in the construction of a road in his village through his RTI interventions. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has recently registered my complaint pressing for a thorough inquiry into the murder of Rajesh Sondharva. Last year, based on my complaint, the NHRC had sought reports of action taken by the Rajkot Police to investigate the circumstances leading to Nanjibhai’s murder. However the NHRC closed its inquiry into my complaint after the murder case was committed for trial. According to media reports, Rajesh was attacked because he was trying to d

By Nandini Oza* Manuben Gandhi was an important woman political activist who is less known in spite of being a central observer of many of the momentous events surrounding India’s freedom struggle, partition and subsequently, events that lead to Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination. Manuben joined Gandhi as his aide and caretaker at the young age of 17 during one of the most crucial periods that India was going through. Manuben maintained extensive diaries, from the time she joined Gandhi just before India attained freedom, through the period of partition till his assassination in 1948. What is important is that Manuben’s diaries are autobiographical accounts that not only contain her own life as a young woman political activist and aide of Gandhi but also cover major events, places, politics, and the social and cultural landscape at that crucial juncture in India’s history. Unfortunately, such an important figure as Manuben, who has otherwise been prominently photographed by Gandhi’s side,

Several concerned citizens of Vadodara, led by Rohit Prajapati, environment activist, researcher, and writer, in an open letter to the Municipal Commissioner, Vadodara Municipal Corporation; secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Union of India; Chief Secretary, Government of Gujarat; and several senior environment and forest department officials of India and Gujarat have sought “immediate” their intervention to prevent anticipated disasters, flooding, and water logging due to authorities’ “deliberate negligence”. Text of the letter: *** We, and some project affected local citizens from all walks of life, in Vadodara have raised the issues, with the concerned authorities, related to prevention anticipated disasters, flooding and water logging due to deliberate negligence, superficial show of work undertaken, and lip services paid regarding the cleaning up and technically and ecologically sound reclamation of ravines filled with construction debris and all kinds

By Mike Ghouse* Whether you are an atheist, Baha’i, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jain, Jewish, Native American, Pagan, Shinto, Sikh, Wicca, and Zoroastrian or from any other tradition, you may feel a sense of connection with the spirit of Ramadan. The best way to build cohesive societies is for its members to understand each other’s sorrows and joys, and festivities and commemorations. Wouldn’t it be nice if you know a little bit about your neighbour’s festival and perhaps invite them to your celebrations? When we live in a community, we might as well learn about each other. Almost all people celebrate something or the other in their way, each one is different, but the essence is the same, that is celebrations and commemorations. Festivities bring people together. Here we explore Ramadan, one of the major festivals of Muslims. You can wish your Muslim friends “Eid Mubarak” Happy Eid, Ramadan Mubarak, Eid-al-Fitr Mubarak… or just Happy Ramadan will do. Rituals signify the milestones in o