ON February 12, Meham town in Rohtak district, Haryana, saw a citizens’ convention that was unusual in more than one sense. First, it was being held from the ramparts of the Meham Chaubisi Chabootara, a platform reserved for members of the Meham panchayat (a conglomeration of 24 villages, better known as the Meham Chaubisi). Second, the meeting was not dominated by any one caste. Third, it was a congregation of...

Even a decade after the horrific episode in which seven Dalits were burnt alive by “caste” Hindus in Kambalapalli village of Chintamani taluk in the then undivided Kolar district, 66 families of the victims are still struggling to lead a dignified life. The State Government, which relocated the 66 Dalit families at a new hamlet called Mini-Kambalapalli on the outskirts of Chintamani town, has not made good on its promises of...

A three-hour drive from Delhi a medieval drama is playing out. A khap — or caste — panchayat in Haryana’s Bhiwani district has asked a man and his family to leave the village because he has married a woman of the same “gotra”. The family sought Police protection after the panchayat threatened a social boycott and pronounced a ban on the sale of their land, saying that it would be...

Nine years after the state’s creation, the cabinet today decided to set up a human rights commission in Jharkhand. The modalities to make the body functional is expected to be worked out soon. Principal secretary, cabinet co-ordination, Aditya Swaroop said according to the Human Rights Protection Act of 1993, all states ought to have a human rights commission. Such commissions are already in existence in Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala,...

Institutions will need to protect not just female employees but even women visiting office premises from sexual harassment under new, last-minute changes to India’s proposed law against sex pests at the workplace. The changes proposed by the women and child development ministry cover victims, not working, where they face sexual harassment from an employee, protecting girls visiting their parents’ offices or women atheletes training at sports camps. The law ministry...