-Live Mint Panchayat-related caste violence continues unabated and has become a part of the social reality today In ancient India, the panchayat system was based on the age-old caste system, social status and family. Although the local self-government concept was introduced in 1882, it took more than 100 years for the local self-government institutions to become a part of the Indian Constitution. While tremendous possibilities have been opened up in the...

-The Hindustan Times People in rural India too are killing their unborn daughters, pulling down the child sex ratio across the country to its lowest since 1961 but the general sex ratio has moved up 10 points to 943 females for 1000 males. The sex ratio in the 0-6 age group brings out the recent changes in the attitude and outlook towards the girl child and indicates the future trend of sex...

-Live Mint Despite being declared unconstitutional by SC, ‘khaps' continue to hold sway in parallel with the state machinery Rohtak/Bhiwani: Ravinder Gehlawat and his wife Shilpa had been married for less than four months when they were marched out of their village-Dharana in Jhajjar district of Haryana-by men of the local community and warned never to return. Their fate was sealed on 24 April 2009 when the local khap panchayat, which translates...

-Economic and Political Weekly The Saradha group's collapse has possibly bankrupted lakhs of small investors robbing them of their life svaings, and has rendered thousands of its agents jobless. The scam highlights the failure of the government and its regulatory agencies to reign in the mushrooming chit fund companies in West Bengal. It also brings under the scanner the Trinamool Congress' proximity with the tainted group. In the wake of the...

-The Hindu     The Bill is a slight improvement on a Private Member's Bill tabled in 2007 Varanasi (UP): Taking forward the movement on improving the plight of widows in the country, a Bill has now been drafted for the protection, welfare and maintenance of such women. The draft Bill prepared by Sulabh International seeks to provide for measures to be undertaken by the state for the protection, welfare and maintenance of neglected, abandoned...