The state is still dithering over the implementation of one of the RTE Act’s clauses, which calls for the reservation of 25% of the seats in private schools for students from the economically weaker sections of society. The provision may not get implemented for the next academic year (2012-13).  In a written reply to the legislative council, education minister Rajendra Darda has said that the state government was in the process...

-PTI Terming mining as the "greatest threat" faced by the tribal community in last two decades, Tribal Affairs Minister Kishore Chandra Deo has asked the youths selected under an ambitious programme to create awareness among the forest dwellers about their constitutional rights over the land.  "Today the greatest threat that has come to the tribals and people living in forest areas is actually the threat of mining," the Minister told the youths...

The media's failure to recruit Dalits is a betrayal of the constitutional guarantees of equality and fraternity. There were almost none in 1992, and there are almost none today: Dalits in the newsrooms of India's media organisations. Stories from the lives of close to 25 per cent of Indians (Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) are unlikely to be known — much less broadcast or written about. Unless, of course, the stories are...

-The Wall Street Journal These days, Indian policymakers are debating how to create a vast new food entitlement program. There is talk of poor households struggling to cope with high food prices and malnourishment among their children. What you don’t hear much about, however, is the most tragic and outrageous consequence of India’s failure to feed its people adequately: starvation deaths. India is a nation that prides itself on having been self-sufficient in...

-PTI Uttar Pradesh saw the maximum number of attacks on Scheduled Castes in 2010 when the erstwhile Mayawati government was in charge of the state.   The annual report of the Home Ministry for 2011-12 released on Wednesday said Uttar Pradesh recorded the highest number (6,272) of cases of crime against SCs out of a total of 32,712 —19.2 per cent of the total incidents in the country in 2010. The numbers mentioned in...