-Scroll.in Untouchability was outlawed in 1950, but discrimination and segregation of the scheduled caste remains pervasive. Musahars, a Scheduled Caste that sections of Hindu society deem untouchable, are still being denied government entitlements such as state pensions and housing. The discrimination is blatant when it comes to accessing government healthcare in Badagaon administrative block of Varanasi district in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous province. The scourge of discrimination is so pervasive that...

-GoIMonitor.com The villagers getting management rights under the Forest Rights Act can inspire others “First came the forest, followed by the people, and then the government. Does this chronology allow the newest entrant in the scheme to determine the relationship between the two older entities? In other words, does the new regime of community forest resource bequeath rights or is it merely a recognition of unalienable rights already vested in the communities living...

-Livemint.com According to the National Family Health Survey data, the average age at death for Dalit women was 39.5 years against 54.1 years for higher-caste women New Delhi: Dalit women in India die younger than upper caste women, face discrimination in accessing healthcare and lag behind on almost all health indicators. While violence against Dalits may be the main form of discrimination visible to the outside world, there are many other ways in...

-Hindustan Times Rather than feeling ignored by the mainstream media or disgruntled by the ‘biased’ coverage, Dalits are using digital space to publish news and opinions. On December 31, when violence spread in Pune on the 200th anniversary of the Bhima- Koregaon battle, it was the first time many people in other parts of the country got to know about the encounter between the army of Peshwa Bajirao II, and a...

-Civil Society News New Delhi: In 1974, Dr Samir Chaudhuri, a paediatrician working in Kolkata’s slums, founded Child in Need Institute (CINI) to tackle the many dimensions of child malnutrition. It struck him at the time that malnutrition wasn’t just a clinical problem but a complex phenomenon rooted in gender issues. Over the years, led by Dr Chaudhuri, CINI developed deep understanding of the social, economic and political underpinnings of malnutrition...