-Livemint.com Despite facing discrimination at every step, Kaushal Panwar managed to achieve her dreams. But she says her identity, for people around her, is still that of a Dalit. It’s like hitting a brick wall with bare fists. You could just give up, thinking you’ll make no more than a scratch. Or you could smash through one day, with the help of a chalk and a slate. When the little Dalit girl first...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: In one-fourth of nearly two lakh villages, which have been declared open defecation free (ODF), all houses don't have toilets, according to the integrated data that the Centre maintains. Finding this difference, the drinking water and sanitation ministry has asked states to update the data so that there is no mismatch. Villages can become open-defecation free only when each household has an individual latrine. The government...

-Governance Now ‘They can’t convict Kalmadi, Vadra, Lalit Modi, Mallya; but will convict transparency advocates’ I am reminded of what my teacher had told me in school: “When a society wishes to blatantly show how unjust it can be, it will crucify the best.” On June 13 when I heard about the conviction of four of the nation’s transparency champions who have given their entire lives to promoting transparency and empowering the...

-The Indian Express Out of all those engaged in manually removing human excreta, 95 per cent are women. While men are paid in cash, women are mostly paid in kind. Meerut And New Delhi: “I started my work as a manual scavenger after my marriage,” says Premi, as she dabs her tears with her faded yellow cotton dupatta. She’s known as ‘Budhiya’ (an old woman) in the Radhna Inayatpur village in Mawana...

-TheWire.in The activists have accused the village sarpanch, who had filed the case, of framing them after they sought to expose his corruption. New Delhi: Well-known rights activist Nikhil Dey and four others were convicted of trespass and simple hurt under sections 323 and 451 of the IPC by a Kishangarh court in Ajmer on Tuesday, June 13. The case, filed 19 years ago on May 16, 1998, pertains to a dispute...