-The Telegraph Nearly 80 per cent of SC, ST and OBC students who cracked NEET cleared the cut-off meant for general-category students The results of the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test, declared on Wednesday, have shown that aspiring doctors from underprivileged social backgrounds are no less than general-category students when it comes to merit. Nearly 80 per cent of students from among the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes who cracked the NEET...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi tried to accommodate representatives of most castes in his Council of Ministers but upper castes got a dominant presence, bagging 32 of the 58 berths. Ministers from Other Backward Classes, a crucial political constituency, numbered 13. Nine Brahmin leaders have found place in the Union cabinet, including Nitin Gadkari. Three Thakur leaders also made it, including Rajnath Singh, Jodhpur MP Gajendra Singh...

-The Indian Express To fulfil the constitutional requirement, reservation must be based on a rigorous identification of economic backwardness. The introduction of the 124th constitutional amendment that provides the possibility of quotas for the “economically weaker sections” (EWS) has rekindled the debate on reservations. These quotas diverge from reservation policies for the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other socially and educationally Backward Classes, by jettisoning caste or community identity as the...

-TheWire.in Government documents and budget data reveal that the prime minister's feet-washing act is just optics. On Sunday, a video uploaded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his personal Twitter account showed him washing the feet of four safai karamacharis in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh. Within two hours, 19,000 Twitter users had liked it, 7,200 had retweeted it and 1,700 had commented on the link. Uploading the video, Modi had tweeted that washing the...

-The Indian Express A two-year-long study jointly undertaken by the SPPU, JNU and Indian Institute of Dalit Studies has revealed that only 22.3 per cent of the country’s higher caste Hindus own 41 per cent of the country’s total wealth Pune: Caste continues to play a significant role in the educational and professional choices available to an individual, and the resultant income and assets, reveals a two-year-long study jointly undertaken by...