-The Hindu The Delhi High Court order striking down the Begging Act heeds the Constitution’s transformative nature In 1871, the colonial regime passed the notorious Criminal Tribes Act. This law was based upon the racist British belief that in India there were entire groups and communities that were criminal by birth, nature, and occupation. The Act unleashed a reign of terror, with its systems of surveillance, police reporting, the separation of families,...

-The Indian Express DeNotified Tribes are those that were labelled as criminals through a legislation by British government and were denotified post-independence. Even as the Bill to accord constitutional status to the OBC commission is awaiting passage in Parliament, the NITI Aayog has backed a proposal by a panel constituted by the Ministry of Social justice and Empowerment to set up a permanent commission for Denotified (DNT), Semi Nomadic (SNT), and Nomadic...

-The Indian Express The NDA government’s approach towards MGNREGA — the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act — has differed from that of the previous UPA regime in one significant way: There is greater emphasis now in the building of “individual household” assets, as opposed to “community” assets, under the scheme that provides 100 days of guaranteed wage employment annually to every rural household whose adult members volunteer to do...

-TheWire.in Years of stigmatisation and harassment have pushed members of the Pardhi and other Adivasi communities in Bhopal to come together and protest police impunity. Fed up with police harassment, Indramal Bai committed suicide in the Gandhi Nagar basti of Bhopal on November 20, 2017. Nothing has changed over the last decade since Tanti Bai, a 14 year old, committed suicide for the very same reason on January 19, 2007. Both were...

-The New Indian Express HYDERABAD (Telengana): People of the Dakkali caste are one of the 193 communities that are categorised as DeNotified Tribes or (DNTs). They are forced to beg exclusively from the Madiga Community, one of the Scheduled Castes. Banala Mangesh, a Dakkali shares how his community is discriminated against, not just by the privileged but also, the Madigas who have been subject to atrocities for centuries. “We are not eligible...