-The Hindu A recent sting video shows the men acquitted in the Laxmanpur Bathe case boasting about the same massacre. Will the passing of the Prevention of Atrocities (Amendment) Bill finally change the way justice is delivered to Dalits? On the night of December 1, 1997, in Laxmanpur Bathe, a village in Bihar’s Arwal district 90 km from Patna, 58 Dalits were slaughtered by a gang of dominant caste men that went...
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Many degrees of hopelessness in India's villages -Harsh Mander
-Hindustan Times The picture of rural Indian life today that emerges from what is probably the world's largest study ever of household deprivation is sobering and sombre. It describes a massive hinterland still imprisoned in persisting endemic impoverishment, want, illiteracy and indeed hopelessness. It tells a story that every thinking and caring Indian must heed. Advocates of free markets, opposed to building a welfare state, have long argued that accelerated market-led economic...
More »New child labour law will hit girls, dalits and OBCs most
-Hindustan Times It was a showpiece legislation when it was launched by the UPA government in 2009. The Right to Education, many hoped, would ensure a decent level of primary education to those who cannot afford expensive private education. The scheme started with much fanfare, but in a few years, reports started coming out that while enrolment in schools has shot up (almost 99% now), the quality of education has not...
More »A Metro pillar pathshala puts lives of labourers’ kids on track -Dharvi Vaid & Sanjeev Rastogi
-The Times of India Two sturdy, grey Metro pillars near the Yamuna Bank station are covered with graffiti of a different kind. The walls under the bridge have alphabets scribbled over them and the place echoes with the murmur of children reciting poems as if trying to compete with the rattling of the metro. This is where Rajesh Kumar Sharma, a shop owner, spends his mornings, teaching the 3Rs and more...
More »Delhi slum kids escape illiteracy with school under Metro bridge -Abhishek Saha
-Hindustan Times New Delhi: Nine-year-old Priyanka Kumari wants to escape her impoverished childhood but the school she studies in is most unusual – underneath a metro bridge in east Delhi’s Shakarpur area. The pillars serve as the boundary of the school and trains roar past on the bridge above, rattling her as she solves elementary mathematical problems. “The teaching here is good, I like coming to this school. Sir gives work to do...
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