Caste may have split Mirchpur — where two dalits were burnt alive in a caste violence blamed on Jats about three months back — but hardly 40km away, a Jat-dominated Serhada village has done something unbelievable: it unanimously elected a dalit woman as its sarpanch. Rani Devi, wife of Raju Balmiki was among 24 candidates for the post, which was reserved for a general category woman. In a break from...

Janhit Abhiyan, an umbrella group of professors, writers, filmmakers, journalists and social justice proponents, has, in a statement, denounced the campaign against caste-based census by “a section of intellectuals and media,” and said this amounted to undermining the consensus arrived at in Parliament. The statement was signed among others by Prof. Tulsiram and Prof. Chamanlal of the Jawaharlal Nehru University; writers Surendra Mohan, Sheeba Aslam Fahmi , Umrao Singh Jatav and...

Chanchala Devi always wanted a house. Not a mud-and-stick hut, like her current home in this desolate village in the mineral-rich, corruption-corroded state of Jharkhand, but a proper brick-and-mortar house. When she heard that a government program for the poor would give her about $700 to build that house, she applied immediately. As an impoverished day labourer from a downtrodden caste, she was an ideal candidate for the grant. Yet she...

At Bopara, around five or six youths assaulted Bhoop Singh with lathis on Tuesday. The victim, who is a dalit and a relative of the newly-elected sarpanch, also named Bhoop Singh, was beaten up following a verbal duel on the ongoing controversy over the recently conducted panchayat elections. The sarpanch had triggered the casteist row by participating in the polls despite a call for boycott on the ground that all...

They plan to raise bank loans to build their own homes and take up agriculture Landless dalit families in a Kancheepuram village have used the Right to Information (RTI) Act to prompt the district administration to hand over land that was originally allotted to them several years ago, thanks to the initiative of a grassroots NGO. A total of 106 dalit families in Alisoor village were allotted 100 sq m...