-Frontline There is growing violence against women and children in Haryana, aided by the apparent collusion between the State government and the upper-caste-dominated khap panchayats. THE road leading to Dabra village in Haryana’s Hisar district is not very difficult to locate. It was at Dabra, a mere 15 kilometres from the district headquarters, that a heinous crime was committed on September 9. It would have gone unnoticed had it not been accompanied...

-The Hindu Mangalore: In what reveals the persistence of caste-based segregation of children in primary schools in rural Karnataka, around 13.7 per cent of Dalit children surveyed in the State have claimed that their teacher had asked them to sit separately from ‘higher caste’ children in the classroom, says a study released by the Centre for Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy, Mangalore University. Released on October 18 here, ‘Discrimination and...

-The Hindu In an agreement with Jan Satyagraha, Centre promises to initiate land reforms Thousands of landless poor aborted their march to Delhi on Thursday, accepting the government's promises to initiate land reform and the possibility of statutory backing for the right to shelter, homestead and agricultural land. Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh signed a 10-point agreement in Agra — barely 10 days after refusing to sign a similar deal at the march’s...

-The Hindu Universal electrification will remain a dream unless the government fixes the flaws in its much vaunted scheme to provide power to rural India In his Independence Day speech, the Prime Minister made the statement that “when the UPA Government came to power in 2004, we had promised that we would provide electricity to all villages.” He then went on to say: “Our next target is to provide electricity to each...

-The Times of India India's official unemployment rate last year was 3.8%, data released recently by the Labour Bureau shows, but, as always, averages hide many stories. A closer look at the numbers shows that unemployment rises with education level to 10% among graduates, and higher still for backward castes. The Chandigarh-based Labour Bureau under the union ministry of labour and employment released the 'Employment and Unemployment Survey 2012' last week. The...