-The Times of India Preliminary findings into the violence at the Maruti's Manesar plant has disproved the Maruti Suzuki Workers Union's allegations that the mob fury was triggered by "casteist comments" allegedly made by a supervisor against a dalit worker. Investigators claimed that the supervisor, Sangram Singh, was also a dalit like his alleged victim, permanent worker Jiyalal, and therefore could not have made abusive comments against him. MSWU had alleged the casteist...

-The Hindu Though there are improvements in employment and labour conditions on the work floor and in workers’ hostels in textile mills and garment factories in the State, “major labour abuses continue to occur,” according to the latest report by non-government watchdogs. The Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO) and the India Committee of the Netherlands (ICN) published a report, ‘Captured by cotton’, in May 2011 on the exploitation of Dalit...

-The Hindustan Times The Punjab government on Wednesday hammered out a compromise in a village between upper caste landlords and Dalit labourers who endured a month-long social boycott and loss of work for demanding “just” wages. But the truce — on paper — at Maha Singh Wala village in southern Punjab’s Sangrur district, 142 km from Chandigarh, appeared unsteady to Dalits as well as the landlords who had enforced the social...

-The Times of India PHAGWARA: Dalit residents of Mahan Singh Wala village in Sangrur district working as farm labourers have approached the Punjab Scheduled Caste Commission after jats not only passed a resolution imposing wages for various menial jobs but also warned them of social boycott if the rules are breached. The resolution, which reeks of caste-based discrimination, has been passed under the name of the village panchayat. Pamphlets spelling out the...

Men from subaltern communities must confront the violence that tears apart some of their homes and families The two books under review are quite dissimilar in what they set out to do. Dalit Women Speak Out comprises a detailed review of a set of related studies carried out in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh on the violence endured by Dalit women. It revisits the notion of ‘atrocity' both...