The fear of khap looms large over Haryana with 40 members of the dalit (Valmiki) community at Mirchpur village in Hisar district — where two people were burnt alive by Jats last week — fleeing their homes, rattled by khap support of Jat violence against them. Their fears were compounded on Sunday when, in a khap meeting in Jind, 300 khap representatives called for intensifying the agitation against the Hindu...

Tamil Nadu's success in implementing the NREGA shows its commitment to social welfare, and the way ahead for other states. The share of women in the NREGA workforce has remained high from the beginning and is the highest in the country The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), enacted in 2005, has had a varied record so far. In many states, implementation has been lame (e.g. Bihar and Gujarat) or...

An argument between a dalit and a Jat over the former’s dog led to near-unbridled violence in a village in Hisar district which was tense throughout Thursday after an 18-year-old physically challenged dalit girl and her father were burnt alive on Wednesday. The dalits refused to cremate the bodies, demanding a CBI probe and compensation, apart from sacking of the Jat tehsildar of Mirchpur village where the violence began. Angry...

Reveals survey by Centre for Environment and Food Security in 50 villages of Bundelkhand  “dalit households not getting single day of work” “Scheme is a failure in the remote areas of Bundelkhand” An independent survey has revealed that implementation of the much talked about Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) in 50 villages across the drought-hit Bundelkhand region has been rather tardy and mired in corruption with most dalit households...

For decades the sprawling state of Bihar, flat and scorching as a griddle, was something between a punch line and a cautionary tale, the exact opposite of the high-tech, rapidly growing, rising global power India has sought to become. Criminals could count on the police for protection, not prosecution. Highwaymen ruled the shredded roads and kidnapping was one of the state’s most profitable businesses. Violence raged between Muslims and Hindus, between...