काउंटरव्यू

By Ashi Datta Gender mainstreaming (the process of assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action, including legislation, policies or programmes, in all areas and at all levels) became popular in several international institutions, including financial institutions like the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank, in the 1990s and 2000s. Sustained political organising and grassroots movements by women across the globe throughout the 20th century were responsible for this. While these financial institutions were assuring the world and its governments of their intentions to foreground gender justice among other pro-people ideals, they were also facing opposition against their loan programmes and policy recommendations. Projects financed by these institutions were revealed to be harmful and disenfranchising for local populations, and their logic of ‘development’ was revealed as flawed and unjust. Since globally women are mo

Pramod Kumar, a member of AGAM: An initiative for Good Governance, a non-profit organization, with the objective to raise the level of governance in education, health, environmental protection, rural development, law and justice, wrote a letter to the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, that various ecommerce platforms, are not complying with the mandatory rules and regulations concerning products. Taking action on the letter the Ministry issued an office memorandum requesting the Central Consumer Protection Authority to look into the matter and take appropriate action. Text of the letter addressed to Piyush Goyal, Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution: *** Subject: Regarding non-compliance of various rules and regulations for products sold through various ecommerce platform AGAM: An initiative for Good Governance is a non for profit organization working for rights of people and common citizen of India. The prime objective of AGAM is to raise the level of governance in

By Moin Qazi*  More than 26 years ago, in 1993, the Latur district in the Marathwada region of Maharashtra was jolted by an earthquake that left a trail of mass destruction. It was India’s most devastating earthquake of the 20th century that left nearly 10,000 dead. It ravaged and obliterated vast swathes of villages and uprooted multitudes of people. Today, several thousand women among those severely affected by the tragedy are recognised as transformational leaders. How these semi-literate and impoverished women converted adversity into opportunity is a saga of grit and tenacity. The glue that bonded them and provided the necessary impetus was a passionate and indefatigable social entrepreneur, Prema Gopalan. Schooled and trained in disaster management, she began rehabilitation work among these women and in 1998 formally launched Swayam Shikshan Prayog (SSP) (self-education for empowerment) with a larger and long-term mission of self-empowerment and self-learning. The crisis and th

By Manoj Misra*  The Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE) under the union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MOEFCC) has recently prepared Detailed Project Reports (DPRs) for the rejuvenation of 13 Indian rivers and released a document called the ‘overview of Detailed Project Reports for rejuvenation of major Indian rivers through forestry interventions’. These rivers are Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas, Sutlej, Yamuna, Brahmaputra, Luni, Narmada, Godavari, Mahanadi, Krishna and Cauvery (Kaveri). This article is in the nature of a caveat on the overview DPR report and the plans. Process of greening or re-vegetation means raising or creating conditions for growth of vegetation (herbs, shrubs, grasses, lianas and trees, big or small) at locations which once carried it in a natural manner. It is different from ‘plantations’ marked by growing of tree seedlings, which in due course may or may not become forests. Also it is a fact that while tree seedlings an

By Firoz Bakht Ahmed* Though I never see people as Hindus and Muslims as the famous poet saint Kabir had said that he doesn’t see a Hindu and and Muslim in the eyes of a person but a human! Interestingly yet I would like to share that Tilak Raj Rustagi, a Hindu friend and colleague of mine, has since 1983 been coming to my place on Holi to smear the red gulal on my forehead as a mark of the festival’s inter-faith harmonious spirit. Once a relative of mine, on seeing the colour smeared on my forehead, remarked, “It is irreligious and un-Islamic to play Holi.” I told him that such things only reiterate my faith in my religion, as friendly acts like putting gulal or lighting a candle on Diwali cannot take away my religion. In the same tone and tenure, Atyab Siddiqui, a senior Delhi High Court lawyer, while celebrating the hues of Holi with his wife Umema, son Mizan and Sumaiyya, states this lovely couplet about Urdu, “”Munh par naqab-e-zard har ik zulf par gulal/ Holi ki shaam hi to sahar

By Karen Selby, RN The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates 125 million people around the world are exposed annually to asbestos in the workplace, and the International Labour Organization says more than 107,000 workers die each year from a related disease. In addition, several thousand people die from asbestos in the environment each year. Despite the fact that health concerns have prompted more than 50 countries to restrict or ban the use of asbestos since the early 1970s, others continue to mine and consume the toxic mineral in alarming quantities. Supported for decades by aggressive industry campaigns, the popularity of asbestos is currently rising in developing nations where affordable, mass-produced building materials are in high demand. But the affordability of asbestos does not come without costs — namely in human lives. Although supporters contest the toxicity of chrysotile (white) asbestos when used under controlled conditions, countless studies have linked exposure of a

By Khyati Manchanda* Today, Instagram has become an indispensable platform for social media marketing, for any kind of entity or individual. In this article, exploratory research carried out at Department of Management Studies at Indian Institute of Technology Delhi brings out the distinctive statistics about the Instagram and delves deeper into one of its interesting features – Hashtags. With more than 1 billion monthly active users (MAU) and 500 million daily active users (DAU), Instagram ranks fourth in the list of most popular social media networks (after Facebook, YouTube, and WhatsApp) (Daniel Ruby, Demandsage) Gen Z’s one of the favourite platforms to socialize, Instagram’s most active accounts are found to be in India (180 million), followed by the USA (170 million), and Brazil (110 million) (Statista). Instagram’s official account is the most followed on the platform (473 million followers). Cristiano Ronaldo (footballer) tops the list of most-followed people on the platform w

Shankar Sharma, Power & Climate Policy Analyst based in Sagara, Karnataka, India writes to Dr A Gopalakrishnan, former chairman of Indian Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (1993–1996), is a well-known figure in the field of nuclear power, nuclear safety and nuclear non-proliferation: *** I came across an interesting article , “Russia’s energy clout doesn’t just come from oil and gas – it’s also a key nuclear supplier” on the increasing complications and uncertainties associated with the procurement of nuclear fuel for various countries which have opted for nuclear power. The military operations in Ukraine have made it very troublesome and uncertain, especially from the perspective of India. The article has not made any direct reference to the intractable issues associated with the so called sanctions on Russia; but the vast dependence on Russia for energy related supplies to so many countries, especially in nuclear power sector, makes the effort associated with such a sanction a hu

By Bharat Dogra COVID-19 vaccines have been widely discussed, but still safety aspects need more attention. Generally in the case of all vaccines adverse events recorded constitute an important part of discussion relating to them, and this is all the more so in the case of COVID-19 vaccines which were developed and distributed in unprecedented hurry. A comparative review of adverse impacts of COVID-19 vaccines is attempted here at two levels . Firstly in the case of a single country (USA) where comparable data over a time period of several years is available, the adverse events following all other vaccines are compared with adverse events following COVID-19 vaccine during 2020-21. Secondly the adverse events data for COVID vaccines is compared for various countries, particularly the USA and India, but also bringing in several European countries and China to some extent. First, we can compare the official data for per month deaths following COVID vaccines with the longer-term data fro

By Fr. Cedric Prakash SJ* St Xavier’s School Loyola Hall, Ahmedabad had its Annual Day programme on today! Actually, it was one of a series of Annual Days; today it was the turn of the Junior KG, Senior KG, Stds. I and II. The littlest ones in the school, all between the ages of four to seven years. Being an event of a community ministry and on the campus itself, I planned to be at the programme for a short while and return since I had some other deadlines to meet. That was not to be! I stayed right through the more than two hours programme and enjoyed every moment of it! I am now back in my room, penning down some of my thoughts that flowed all through the programme and continue to do so! The theme of the Annual Day programme was ‘Be a Rainbow’. The tiny tots performed about a dozen different programmes: mainly dance and action songs! After months of closure due to the pandemic, physical schooling began for them, less than a month ago. Putting up any programme, in such a short time-sp

By Boaventura de Sousa Santos* Europe needs to take a hard look at itself. Because it has proved to be incapable of dealing with the causes of the Ukraine crisis, Europe is now condemned to deal with its consequences. Although the dust of this tragedy has not even begun to settle, we are forced to conclude that Europe’s leaders did not and do not have what it takes to deal with the situation at hand. They will go down in history as Europe’s most mediocre leaders since the end of the Second World War. They are now making sure that they do their best in terms of humanitarian assistance, and their efforts in that regard should not be questioned. But the reason they are doing it is to save face in the light of the biggest scandal of our time. Over the last seventy years they have ruled over populations who have been at the forefront in terms of organizing themselves and demonstrating against war wherever it happens to be waged. But it turns out that they were not able to defend those same

The All-India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), CPI's trade union wing, in a statement has said that all employee representatives in the the Central Board of Trustees (EPFO), demanding continuation of 8.5 % as the rate of interest on accumulations in employees' accounts for the year ending 31st march 2022. The chairman has recommended 8.1 %, but the final call will be taken by the finance ministry, Government of india. *** The AITUC has opposed any reduction in interest rates on the following grounds: 1. The Government is abdicating it's responsibility to provide social security to the industrial workers and leaving them to the vagaries of financial markets; 2. To reduce the interest rate amounts to reducing the protection offered by PF accumulations in old age, a problem faced by all senior citizens who hope to support themselves by interest on their savings; 3. It is high time the Government contributes to social security funds to take care of all sections of toiling people f