The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it was incumbent upon the Haryana government to provide protection to the victims of caste violence in Mirchpur village in Hisar district. The apex court bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and C.K. Prasad said the failure to provide protection would be viewed seriously. The Dalits (Balmikis) of Mirchpur were targets of violence by the Upper Caste Jats on April 21. As many as 150...

The word ‘Mitanin’ was derived from a Chhattisgarhi custom, where a ‘mitanin’ is a girl bonded ceremoniously in her childhood to another girl as a lifelong friend IT IS quite common for tractors in rural India to haul all kinds of unusual cargo. Even then, a late night emergency shuttle, from a small home in Narayanpaal village in the backward Bastar district of Chhattisgarh, to ferry a pregnant woman in...

A Dalit father of two and his upper-caste lover were allegedly stoned to death in an Andhra village in a suspected honour killing case being dubbed the state’s first. The bodies of S. Sunkari Srinivas, 32, and Swapna Reddy, 22, bearing injury marks caused by stone hits, were found on the outskirts of Krishnajiwadi village in Nizamabad district last night, police said. The attackers were alleged relatives of Swapna, who could...

The PPP model proposed in the Eleventh Plan provides for no government or social control over education. It will lead to the privatisation and commercialisation of education using public funds.  Public-private partnership (PPP) has become a fashionable slogan in new development strategies, particularly over the last couple of decades. It is projected as an innovative idea to tap private resources and to encourage the active participation of the private sector...

The glitter of growth has added little sparkle to the lives of many peasants and rural workers. Deprivation, discrimination, and disadvantage dominate the everyday lives of large sections in rural Andhra Pradesh, an important new study*finds.  Village studies highlight features of society that are often overlooked and overshadowed by macro-studies of the economy. A recent study presents extraordinarily rich, unusually detailed and intensely disturbing data on agrarian relations, livelihoods, economic...