The Haryana Government has implemented several new schemes for those belonging to weaker sections of society, Public Health Engineering Minister Kiran Choudhry said at Tosham in Bhiwani district on Monday. Addressing a gathering after laying the foundation stone for a chaupal for Backward Classes, she said that the Ambedkar Medhavi Chhatra Yojana had been implemented for talented students belonging to Scheduled Castes and Other Backward Classes. Under the scheme, scholarships ranging from...

The story of Khairlanji as a story of the plight of the Scheduled Castes in scores of villages has joined the pantheon of protest literature of the Dalit movement with the staging of Marathi play Tanta Mukta Gaon (Dispute-Free Village). The Maharashtra government in 2010 declared the village of Khairlanji, infamous for the brutal killings of four members of the Bhotmange family, a “Tanta Mukta Gaon” under a government programme which...

A bill drafted by the National Advisory Council to check communal violence seeks to impose greater accountability on public officials in tackling violence or discrimination against vulnerable groups. The council, headed by Sonia Gandhi, today took up the Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence (Access to Justice and Reparations) Bill, prepared by one of its working groups. The council has decided to put the draft bill in the public domain to invite...

Even as the formation of the 13-member regulatory body to monitor television content in channels is in its final stages, the government is keen to retain the final say as far as content goes. "The regulatory body, the Broadcast Content Complaints Council (BCCC), will be ready by the first week of May. It will get 21 days to act on any complaint. The information  and broadcasting ministry will wait-and-watch over...

Amid the billowing controversies surrounding the Lokpal Bill drafting committee, senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh Saturday backed a demand for a Dalit representative on the panel while central minister Salman Khurshid ruled out any changes in the committee. Singh backed Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati's demand for a Dalit representative on the 10-member government-civil society committee, though he has been her bitter critic. "The demand is just," Singh said, adding nothing...