RajivBuzz

  Refusing to go beyond the data released by the Election Commission of India (ECI) on the Lok Sabha candidates’ own declarations of their criminal record, educational qualification and assets, the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), a top-notch advocacy group, has declared Aam Aadmi Party candidate Chaitar Vasava, 35, having the highest number of criminal cases of all those fighting the electoral battle on 26 seats in Gujarat.

  Real wages have barely risen in India since 2014-15, despite rapid GDP growth. The country’s social security system has also stagnated in this period. The lives of informal workers remain extremely precarious, especially in states like Jharkhand where casual employment is the main source of livelihood for millions. These are some of the findings  presented  by economists Jean Drèze and Reetika Khera at a press conference convened by the Loktantra Bachao 2024 campaign. 

Personally, I have no love lost for Purshottam Rupala, though I have known him ever since I was posted as the Times of India representative in Gandhinagar in 1997, from where I was supposed to do political reporting. In news after he made the statement that 'maharajas' succumbed to foreign rulers, including the British, and even married off their daughters them, there have been large Rajput rallies against him for “insulting” the community.

 Rating the civic space in India as " repressed ", the global civil society alliance  CIVICUS  has said Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s second term in power was sustained by a pattern of repression to undermine democracy and civic space. The assessment is based on its analysis of civic freedoms in 198 countries and territories to categorise them as either ‘closed,’ ‘repressed,’ ‘obstructed,’ ‘narrowed’ or ‘open,’ based on a methodology which combines several data sources on the freedoms of association, peaceful assembly and expression.

A leading global management consulting firm working with more than three-quarters of the Fortune Global 500, as well as with government bodies and nonprofit organizations, has said that while vast majority of Indian businesses surveyed (91%) claim they have set targets to reach net zero, with 51% of them viewing these targets as “highly achievable”, ironically, most of them (78%) consider sustainability as a cost to business rather than opportunity.

    The gruesome  murder  of a Dalit youth allegedly for refusing to heed the order of high caste Rajputs not to "show off" by riding on his horse is all set to become a major embarrassment for the Supreme Court, which  ruled  recently that certain provisions the Prevention of Atrocities (POA) Act were being misused to "blackmail" innocent people. The only Dalit boy in the region to ride a horse, he was quite popular in his community.

  A new report by Paris-based non-governmental research and campaigning organization, Reclaim Finance, has blamed the MNC ArcelorMittal – formed in 2006 following the takeover and merger of the western European steel maker Arcelor (Spain, France, and Luxembourg) by Indian-owned Mittal Steel – for using use “climate destructive” metallurgical coal for its projects in India.