The S.C. and S.T. (Prevention of Atrocities) Act has failed to make Dalits any safer. THE ascent of the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) to power in Uttar Pradesh on May 13, 2007, was seen as a defining moment in the politics of Dalit empowerment in the country. The Scheduled Caste (S.C.) leader of an avowedly “Dalit assertive” party had been Chief Minister earlier too, but the difference this time...

The article presents the political and economic impacts of various kinds of natural and man-made disasters and associated displacement of populations, and argues for a wider and more inclusive definition of disasters in the interest of human rights, social justice and equity for the victims of disasters. Legislation, Disasters and People Numerous disasters at national and international levels have caused governments to recognise the need for rapid and effective response to provide...

A seminar titled Food Security and Sustainability in India, organized at Amritsar between 7 and 8 November by the GAD Institute of Development Studies, a NGO, at Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, brought together government officials, scientists, academicians and NGOs so as to generate discussions and debates surrounding climate change and global warming and their impact on agriculture. The Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change is going to take place between...

In one section of the university building where I teach, there is an enormous and motley collection of discarded computer-related items, stacked and piled in an unwieldy mess. This has been lying around for a while now, nearly a year, not only because of the prolonged bureaucratic procedures involved in getting material "written off", but also because no one knows what to do with the stuff once it has actually...

In a recent lecture, delivered in Mumbai in memory of Nani Palkhivala, the home minister, P. Chidambaram, attacked “left-leaning intellectuals” and “human rights groups”, who, in his view, “plead the naxalite cause ignoring the violence unleashed by the naxalites on innocent men, women and children”. “Why are the human rights groups silent?” asked the home minister. The short answer is that they aren’t, and haven’t been, silent. There are very...