In yet another confirmation of how space for free expression is shrinking in Gujarat, a human rights conference, attended by some well-known names – Supreme Court advocate Prashant Bhushan, environmentalist Vandana Shiva, People’s Union for Civil Liberties leader Kavita Shrivastava, Narmada Bachao Andolan leader Medha Patkar, among others – was held at a private terrace in Ahmedabad instead of a public space.

   A  new report  released by a top Netherlands-based advocacy group,  BankTrack , has said that of the nine major Asian banks which “are open for business in coal, dirtiest of fossil fuel” three are from India: State Bank of India, Axis Bank and Bank of Baroda. Other major Asian banks in the business of coal are Mizuho, SMBC and MUFG in Japan, and Bank Mandiri, Rakyat and Negara in Indonesia. Titled “Coal Havens: The policy loopholes keeping coal finance alive in Asia”, the report underlines, Asia today is the ‘ growth engine ’ of the global coal industry despite the world  agreeing  to transition away from fossil fuels at COP28 in December 2023. To prove its point, the report cites the International Energy Agency (IEA), which  say , global coal demand reached a record high in 2022 amidst the global energy crisis, rising by 4% year-on-year to 8.42 billion tonnes (Bt). According to IEA, “The growth engine for coal demand, which increased in both p...

I visited the much publicised Atal Bridge, opened in the memory of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee for the first time. It connects two sides of Sabarmati river in Ahmedabad. You can cross it walking. I knew of the bridge, around it so much of hype was created. I always thought it wasn't worth visiting, especially considering the fact that there was a ticket to take a stroll. However, since I was accompanied by my NRI friends from New Jersey and they wanted to visit the flower show and thereafter the Atal Bridge, which is attached to it, I thought why not have first hand experience of the bridge, inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on August 27, 2022. Walking up the bridge, this was the biggest surprise I encountered: the Atal Bridge has no photo of the man after whom it has been named! Instead, a life size photo cutout of our honourable Prime Minister is on display. In the background one sees some illustrations of what all authorities think is "m...

Well-known international consultants, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), in a survey of India’s top business executives of big firms has regretted that as many as 75% of the respondents said their company does not have “a publishable tax transparency report (TTR)”, indicating “a gap in tax transparency-related practices.”

  Even as the Gujarat government is all set to launch another edition of its high-profile Vibrant Gujarat world business meet (January 10-12), a top state document has gone out of the way to admit one of the severest issues which the state badly needs to urgently tackle: “pollution control, especially industrial and urban pollution”.