-The Times of India NEW DELHI: As the government moves to set up a more empowered panel for OBCs amid agitations from strong communities to secure "backward" status, experts are warning that the Centre should prevent growing attempts to abuse the fruits of Mandal Commission. PS Krishnan, domain expert and a champion of OBC reservations, told TOI, "The government should prevent the efforts of well-established advanced communities to get into the list...

-The Hindu Among SAARC nations, it’s third behind Sri Lanka, Maldives India slipped down one place from 130 to 131 among the 188 countries ranked in terms of human development, says the 2016 Human Development Report (HDR) released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on Tuesday. India’s human development index (HDI) value of 0.624 puts it in the “medium human development” category, alongside countries such as Congo, Namibia and Pakistan. It is...

-PTI The Gujarat government should build separate crematoriums for Dalits in those villages where the community is still facing problems, the Scheduled Castes Welfare Committee of the Gujarat Assembly has suggested. The Assembly panel, which serves as the watchdog of welfare schemes being run by various government departments for SCs in Gujarat, also recommended reservation system for the recruitment in self financed colleges in Gujarat. These suggestions were made in two of the...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The government has decided to stop funding research centres on social discrimination at several universities, prompting accusations of shielding the "Brahminical social order". "It's ironic that these centres, which research Dalits, B.R. Ambedkar's philosophy, social exclusion and inclusive policies like reservation, are being closed down when the University Grants Commission (the higher education regulator) is funding courses on Vedic studies," said N. Sukumar, Ambedkar scholar and teacher of...

-Scroll.in The falling viability of sugarcane in the fertile Upper Doab is a portent to the tough times India’s farm sector could see in the future. In Mundet Kalan, as dusk sets in, villagers get together for some chatter, passing around a large wooden hookah. The village, located in Shamli district of western Uttar Pradesh, is dominated by land-owning Jats – who are angry at almost everything around them. “Jaton ke saath bahot...