A report of the National People's Tribunal on the 2008 riots in Kandhamal, Orissa, is out. The report that runs into 197 pages points out that the brutality of the violence falls within the definition of 'torture' under international law, particularly the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.   According to the tribunal, headed by Justice A P Shah, communal forces used religious conversions as an issue for political mobilisation...

Sanand, a taluka of Ahmedabad district, has been developing rapidly ever since Tata Motors set up its Nano plant here; it is now expected to emerge as the ‘Detroit of India’. But one of its villages, Goraj, hides an ugly fact - ostracisation of a Dalit community. The irony is that this discrimination is taking place barely 50 km from Ahmedabad where Mahatma Gandhi’s Sabarmati Ashram (also known as Harijan Ashram)...

Supreme Court displeased with Centre's failure to suggest measures   The Supreme Court has indicated that it may ask the Central government to set up special courts to try cases of damage done to public property in agitations. A Bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and S.J. Mukhopadhaya on Tuesday expressed displeasure at the Centre for not coming out with suggestions to prevent damage to public property and said special courts would be directed...

They could vote freely in Lok Sabha and Assembly elections but had to plead and fight for their right to exercise their franchise in local body polls. The Dalits (Pallars) of Gramapatti village in Kovilankulam panchayat under Chellampatti panchayat union near here finally got to vote in the panchayat elections for the first time in four decades. According to a section of the Dalits, the local elite's dominance, in the form of...

If pain had a face, it could be Narayan Sonawane’s. The 45-year-old Dalit farmer keeps scratching a shaving wound on his face till it bleeds, and makes him flinch. The pain, perhaps, momentarily takes his mind off the gruesome reality outside his hut — a seven acre plot that used to be a Dalit cremation ground until a year ago. In June 2010, it was usurped by upper caste Maratha farmer...