A team consisting of civil society network, Dalit Adivasi Shakti Adhikar Manch (DASAM) activists, who visited to the families of two sanitation workers who died while cleaning up a sewer on March 25, 2021 in Pearl Grand Banquet Hall in Gazipur, Delhi, has regretted that government agencies, owners of septic tanks and contractors "are openly violating the Manual Scavengers Act, 2013 and directions are given by Delhi High Court", one reason why "poor Dalit sanitation workers are being killed while cleaning sewer/septic tanks."

  As part of a unique campaign to melt all the brass utensils and articles collected from across India and mint a 1111 milligram diameter coin, on which the image of Dr BR Ambedkar's famous anti-untouchability Mahad satyagraha of 1927 will be engraved, Gujarat’s top Dalit rights organisation, Navsarjan Trust, has begun a major donations drive from people willing to take part in what has been called “no rallies, no sit-ins, no slogans and no call for Bharat bandh” programme.

AK Vijay Kumar Many say, marriages are made in heaven. However, as a confirmed non-believer, I don’t seem to think that way. But if one were to believe that marriages are indeed made in heaven, would the guests who are invited in some of the high-profile weddings also decide the destiny of the newly weds? I don’t know. Yet, the fact is, the competition to invite guests at such weddings is something I noticed after I came to Ahmedabad in 1993 to join as assistant editor of the Times of India. The occasion was the marriage of the son my colleague, who was covering Gandhinagar then (and whom I replaced in 1997, and remained there till early 2013), Ashraf Syed, an amenable senior journalist who is known to have broken many a story. At the reception itself, I found my colleagues in the TOI reporters’ section, as also my editor, late Tushar Bhatt, counting out who all had attended the reception. All major political leaders, including those whom Syed had targeted during his stint as journalis...

  In a letter to the chairman and member-secretary, Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), the Government of India’s anti-pollution watchdog, and to officials its Gujarat counterpart, senior environmentalists Rohit Prajapati and Krishnakant of the Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti (PSS), have said that one of the state’s biggest rivers, Mahisagar, which flows off the state's cultural capital Vadodara, has turned into “disaster in motion.”

Neeraj Nanda In continuation of my previous blog , my friend in Melbourne, Neeraj Nanda, on reading it, tried to see if a Gujarat government site of the General Administration Department (GAD), which I opened sitting in Ahmedabad, is opening in Australia, too. Ironically, this site introduces itself as “Towards Smart Governance: Department’s main objectives lay strong foundations for citizens and fulfill their expectations and gain trust by finding measures through effective and responsive administration”. The site, interestingly, has photographs of Gujarat chief secretary Anil Mukim, additional chief secretary (personnel) Kamal Dayani, and secretary (administrative reforms and training/non-resident Indians) Dhanjay Dwivedi, among others, in the right-hand panel. Despite the fact that the NRI secretary is one of the top three in the GAD list, my NRI friend failed to open the site! Nanda phoned me up – of course on WhatApp – to tell me I was right. The Gujarat government sites were not...

  Gujarat’s top Dalit rights organisation, Navsarjan Trust, is all set to initiate a unique campaign under which families from different parts of the country will contribute a brass article or a utensil -- all of it will be melted and minted into a 1111 milligram diameter coin with the question engraved on it: Will the 1947 dream of untouchability-free India be reality yin 2047?

Roshan Shah Recently, I got a message from an NRI friend settled in Canada, Roshan Shah. Himself a software engineer, he told me that several Gujarat government sites do not appear to be “accessible outside India.” He particularly cited the main state government site , referring to an IT tool , wondering, “When PM has touted Vibrant Gujarat for years, how would any investors trust a government which can't even get its main site, policies etc., accessible to outsiders?” He continued, “What about medical tourism where patients would want to get in touch with state government or health officials? Narendra Modi keeps blaming Dr Manmohan Singh and Congress for historical issues despite knowing you can't change past, but for months and months, he and his government is unaware that Gujarat Model is not seen outside India. That too despite so many IAS working in the chief minister’s office.” Roshan asked, “What is the caliber of Gujarat's IAS cadre? Are they even fit to be promot...

Mamata Banerjee is “injured”. The two main political opponents of Mamata, the Congress-Left combine, on one hand, and the BJP, on the other, challenging what so far seemed to be her indisputable rule in the poll-bound West Bengal, are stating that it was an “accident” and Mamata was trying to use it as to gain sympathy. On the other hand, as already reported, the Trinamool Congress, which she heads, says, she was “pushed” by four to five persons and was the result of “security lapse.” Without going into the controversy surrounding the incident, as it would take some time to reach some conclusion on what might have happened, I want to jot down a few interesting facts which I learned from a senior journalist friend from Kolkata, whom I have met a couple of times in Ahmedabad when he came down to cover elections in Gujarat. I talked to him a couple of days before the Mamata incident actually took place. I wanted to know what was happening in West Bengal, whether the BJP would win, and wha...

  As many as 3,000 cases registered and investigated under the Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, enacted in 2012, fail to reach court for a fair trial every year, suggesting every day four child victims of sexual abuse are “denied justice” due to the closure of cases by the police because of “insufficient evidence or lack of a clue”, a study released by the Kailash Satyarthi Children's Foundation (KSCF) released on International Women’s Day, has said.

  The European Union (EU) and India should “quickly restart” their talks about human rights, because for “too many years pressing issues like freedom of belief and religion have not been discussed”, said participants of the online conference “Situation of Human Rights in India”, hosted by Members of the European Parliament (EP) Bert-Jan Ruissen (Netherlands) and Cristian Terhes (Romia) under the umbrella of the EP Intergroup on Freedom of Religion or Belief and Religious Tolerance.