Chandil, Jharkhand: Outrage has given way to expectancy in West Singhbhum, Jharkhand, where people are now waiting for the benefits that will come to them from a multipurpose project on the Subarnarekha, a venture that is finally set to take off after 40 years of holdups and protests.   On June 15, a team of engineers will test the dam’s vital functions and, if all goes well, the inauguration is expected in...

The cartoon controversy provides the possibility of interrogating the functioning of the academic system to understand its relationship with the downtrodden masses. A new deliberation is needed in order to make the academic world more sensitive and responsive towards the issues and concerns of the subaltern-oppressed communities. This will be an ethical incentive for the present-day dalit movement in India and can bring greater democratisation to the education system. Harish Wankhede...

Row over cartoon demeans the Dalit movement in general and Ambedkar in particular The intellectual-rational capacity of the current brand of Congress leadership has always been in doubt. In the latest episode of fast-track community appeasement by banning a controversial Nehru-Ambedkar cartoon in an NCERT textbook, the ruling elites of our country hit a new low in their political opportunism. Kapil Sibal is, in general, not a popular figure among Dalits,...

After Modi, it's Raghavan's turn to see riots as ‘action-reaction' In its closure report filed in the Zakia Jafri case, the R.K. Raghavan-led Special Investigation Team says Ms. Jafri's husband and former MP Ehsan Jafri was killed because he provoked a “violent mob” that had assembled “to take revenge of Godhra incident from the Muslims.” Ehsan Jafri fired at the mob and “the provoked mob stormed the society and set it...

It dismisses as “false and fabricated documents” fax messages claimed to have been sent by Sanjiv Bhatt The Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team has totally disagreed with the observations of amicus curiae Raju Ramachandran, and said no case can be made out against Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in connection with the 2002 communal riots under any of the Sections of the Indian Penal Code mentioned by him. Mr. Ramachandran, in his...