-The Economic Times   A giant statue in a Lucknow square made 12-year-old Rashi curious. Whose statue is this, she asked her father. Although a BSP worker, Jhanki Ram couldn't go beyond the name, Jyotiba Phule. But not wanting to show his ignorance, he added, "He was a Mahatma who did a lot for the dalit community". Both had come from Etawah to take part in Kanshiram Parinirvan functions this month. For...

Unsafe. Risky. Dangerous. No adjective may seem vile enough for Ranchi that has topped the district crime chart in Jharkhand with the highest number of murders, rapes and abductions to its credit. According to the 2010 statistics released recently by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), as many as 183 persons were killed, 92 raped and 128 kidnapped in Ranchi last year. Though the police brass find solace in the fact that...

About conviction, the less said the better New figures released by the National Crime Records Bureau show India's two largest cities accounted for one-third of the rape cases registered in 2010, and underline depressing infirmities in the prosecution of perpetrators — just over a quarter of them were convicted. Last year, the national capital recorded 414 rape cases, the biggest number among 35 major cities monitored by the Bureau, followed by 194...

Pilot survey under Project Dipankar in four prosperous districts shows 87 per cent class I students of government schools are undernourished Eighty-seven per cent school children in four districts of West Bengal are undernourished right at the entry level. The shocking numbers are from the yet unpublished report of Project Dipankar, a child tracking system initiated by the department of school education in the state. The project tracks the educational performance...

Vilas Bhagwan Pote grins as he recalls his election as sarpanch of Ralegan Siddhi, Anna Hazare’s village in Ahmednagar district, 11 years ago. “I was the traitor, the bad guy,” he jokes. “I openly defied Anna because I felt he was wrong.” Pote, a Dalit charmakar (cobbler) then in his 30s, had been unhappy as the 2000 panchayat polls drew close. As always, Anna had nominated a new executive body for the...