-The Times of India The clamour over Pakistan fanning communal passions in India through social networking sites has missed a crucial detail. Around 20% of the web pages — blocked by government agencies — were uploaded by right-wing Hindu fundamentalists seeking to polarize the country on communal lines.  In these posts doctored images or videos showing alleged atrocities against tribal Bodos by Muslims have been tagged with provocative captions and point to...

-The Hindustan Times The country is once again dangerously adrift in a stormy sea of competitive hate politics. The signs are both ominous and familiar — the systematic creation of hatred against people because of their ethnicity or religion; rumours and hate propaganda choking the internet; the public moral justification of violence against targeted communities on grounds of ‘larger’ alleged wrongs; and weak-kneed State action against people and organisations which preach...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: A prayer meeting held at the house of a tribal Christian, Madhukar Salve, in Thavalpada village of Mokhada taluka was allegedly disrupted by a mob on Sunday.  Around 11am, over 50 Christian tribals from Thavalpada and neighbouring villages were singing devotional songs at Salve's house when the mob assaulted them. Salve has been holding prayer session every Sunday for the past two years. No arrests have been...

-Express News Service Hyderabad, New Delhi: The Andhra Pradesh High Court today quashed the 4.5 per cent sub-quota for minorities carved by the Centre out of the 27 per cent reservation for OBCs. A division bench comprising Chief Justice Madan Lokur and Justice P V Sanjay Kumar set aside the sub-quota while observing that the government’s decision was based on religious grounds and not any other consideration. The verdict may affect admissions that...

Why kill over a people’s dietary preference for beef? “The university and all teaching systems that appear simply to disseminate knowledge are made to maintain a certain social class in power, and to exclude the instruments of power of another social class.... The real political task in a society such as ours is to criticise the workings of institutions, which appear to be both neutral and independent; to criticise and attack...