-BBC   Police in India's Maharashtra state have arrested five members of an upper caste for beating, stripping and parading naked a low-caste Dalit woman. The victim was attacked because her son had eloped with an upper-caste girl about a month ago. She has alleged that police initially refused to file a case saying such incidents were not uncommon. The incident took place in Mulgaon village on Monday afternoon but reports of the atrocity have...

Up against a formidable line-up of Army officials who were members of an inquiry panel that ended up taking away her job, a victim of alleged sexual harassment by the principal of an Army Public School in Jaipur came knocking on Defence Minister A.K. Antony's door here on Tuesday seeking justice. She was accompanied by the former MP and Communist Party of India (Marxist) Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat and...

-The Times of India   Shocking video has emerged of naked Jarawa tribals in the Andaman islands being made to dance before tourists for food and money during the course of 'human safaris' organized by operators in connivance with local authorities.  According to a report in the UK-based 'Observer' newspaper, which also released the footage taken by its reporter, the safaris brazenly flout laws that prohibit close contact with the tribals and photographing...

Not only are the Forest Rights Act and the Panchayats Extension to Scheduled Areas Act routinely violated in Chhattisgarh, the adivasis are also short-changed on legislative representation and reservations in government jobs. As the state cedes land to capital while reducing the adivasis to an ornamental presence, there is increasing assertion of adivasi identity, born out of class predicaments and experiences of displacement as much as notions of indigeneity. Supriya Sharma...

Salman Khurshid’s proposal to send law school graduates to remote districts for a year should also benefit those who need free legal aid THE UNION law ministry’s proposal to send students to practice for a year in far-flung districts of the country after finishing studies is an excellent idea — and long overdue. But it can be a progressive move only if it is thought through properly. Ways have to be...