RajivSpeak

  The Gujarat government’s claim that its decision to build the world’s tallest statue in the world, in the memory of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, would attract “tremendous” response from top international construction companies, has gone phut. The state government floated international tenders in August to build the statue, which is slated to be 182-metres high. Despite the “international” character of the tenders and big claims, well-informed Sachivalaya sources close to Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi say, “not one international firm has come up to offer to carry out the construction activity.”

Has Gujarat’s high growth trajectory helped overcome its lag in the social sector? Inter-state comparisons, culled out from different studies, suggest that this not happened.  Gujarat is being widely projected as the “model state” which others must follow. The state’s economy, it is argued, has been growing at the rate of around 10 per cent per annum. Expanding wings of industrialization is considered the key to this growth. The state rulers’ “model” stems from the view of neoliberal economists such as Bibek Debroy and Jagdish Bhagwati, who believe that economic growth would automatically take care of improvement in the social sector. However, facts suggest that, despite high growth, the social sector in Gujarat has suffered. Its coastline, forming 20 per cent of India, has become more vulnerable to environmental destruction. Fishermen in areas where industrialization has taken shape have lost livelihood. The SEZ and port at Mundra, Kutch district, developed by the Adani group, spr...

Latest information, calculated on the basis of the worker-population ratio (WPR) provided by the top statistical collection body of the Government of India, National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO), has revealed that Gujarat has nearly 4.2 lakh child workers – 3.18 lakh in the rural areas and a little above 1 lakh in the urban areas. The calculation is based on the NSSO’s revelation in its latest report, “Employment and Unemployment Situation in India, 2011-12”, released in January 2014. It points towards the fact that Gujarat has 2.2 per cent child workers in the urban areas and 4.3 per cent child workers in the rural areas in the age-group 5-14, which happens to be one of the highest in India.

  In a sharp admission, several Indian diaspora human rights groups in the US have regretted that there is “a lack of awareness about Hindu supremacy” in the country, leading to “well-meaning centrist and progressive institutions to mis-recognize Hindu supremacists as representative of the wider, far more diverse, and more liberal Indian American community.”

Number of registered industries in Gujarat A top Gujarat government insider has disclosed to Counterview that biennial Vibrant Gujarat business summits, sponsored by Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, has mainly attracted industries which are in the “most polluted” category. Quoting sources in the Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB), the state government’s official anti-pollution watchdog, the insider has revealed there has been a massive around 2.5 times rise in “highly polluting” category between 2007 and 2012.

  Latest survey by top international consultants Ernst & Young, “EY’s attractiveness survey: India 2014 – Enabling the prospects”, based on interview with 502 representatives of international and local opinion leaders and decision-makers, has said that 51.2 per cent of the global investors say that Mumbai is the “most attractive” city of India, followed by Bengaluru (37.8 per cent), New Delhi (37.4 per cent), Chennai (14.6 per cent), Pune (13.1 per cent) and Chandigarh (10.7 per cent). Significantly, the EY survey does not find Ahmedabad in the company of these “most attractive cities”.

Expenditure on education: 2013-14 (% budgetary allocation) The latest Reserve Bank of India (RBI) report, “State Finances: A Study of Budgets of 2013-14”, has demonstrated that the Gujarat government has not been spending enough on social sector, despite its poor human development indicators. Brought out in January 2014, the report – an annual exercise – says that in India as a whole “the expenditure pattern revealed an improvement in quality, as reflected in sharp increases in development expenditure, particularly social sector expenditure.” However, the data the RBI report has put out go to show that Gujarat has failed to improve upon its social sector expenditure in the recent past. In fact, if the report is any indicator, overall spending on the social sector – which includes not just education and health but also expenditure on rural development, food storage and warehousing – has stagnated over the last four years. Thus, the Gujarat government’s social sector expenditure in 2010-...

  Does Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Arvind Kejriwal have soft-corner for BJP’s prime ministerial candidate and Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi? Though AAP’s unit in Gujarat vehemently denies this, the question is being widely debated among political circles and senior Gujarat activists, who have known Kejriwal ever since he was more of a right to information (RTI) activist about five years ago. The confusion is particularly worst confounded because they are privy to a little-known fact about Kejriwal – he had a two-and-a-half-hour long meeting, which, they recall, took place with Modi in 2010.

Jayanthi Natarajan BJP’s prime ministerial aspirant Narendra Modi was in Goa in January second week. He took a jibe at former Union environment and forests minister Jayanthi Natarajan – saying there was a “Jayanthi tax” when she was in charge of the ministry. Modi alleged many files in the ministry were pending only because of a new tax in Delhi called “Jayanthi tax”, and unless it was “paid” no file would move. "We've heard of income tax, sales tax, commercial tax in the past, but this is the first time we are hearing of a Jayanthi tax!" he declared. When he made the remark, I humbly thought, what’s new about it. Politicians of all hues are alike. They all charge a “tax” for all that they do. My experience in Gandhinagar as correspondent wasn’t any different. Indeed, I wasn’t wrong. My friend Mahesh Pandya, who, as environmental engineer (he calls himself environmental expert; “I am not an environmentalist”, he says), moves around Gujarat campaigning on environmental iss...