Dalits, OBCs in India’s colleges are using beef as a symbol of a resurgent identity     “Non-Brahmins have evidently undergone a revolution. From being beef-eaters to have become non-beef-eaters was indeed a revolution. But if non-Brahmins underwent one revolution, Brahmins had undergone two. They gave up beef-eating, which was one revolution. To have given up meat-eating altogether and become vegetarians was another revolution.”     —B.R. Ambedkar *** The Beef Menu     Available In Kerala,...

In the mid-eighties there was a Rumour which later turned out to be true: US livestock were being fed with foodgrains in order to ensure better quality of their meat. Later it proved to be corn and not fine cereals like wheat and rice. The Indian intelligentsia was appalled and indignant: How come cows and buffaloes were fed with grains while millions of people continued to live below the poverty line...

Edible oil prices soared almost 10%-Rs 6 to 8 per kg-in the last one month, piling up pressure on the already vulnerable food inflation. Palm oil, which accounts for nearly half of India's refined oil consumption, went up Rs 10 per kg following a sharp rally in international markets. India imported about eight million tonne, or half of its domestic vegetable oil requirement, last year. A weakening rupee has been another...

The case of 18-month-old Sumi in West Bengal received adverse media publicity The government on Friday confirmed that an 18-month-old girl from West Bengal, who developed Acute Flaccid Paralysis (AFP) earlier this month, tested negative for polio. Her stool samples tested negative for wild polio virus in the examination conducted in the Institute of Serology here. A section of the media flashed the case of Sumi Naskar from South 24 Parganas as polio...

-PTI Stoking controversy, the Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal banned English and mass-circulation Bengali dailies at state-sponsored and aided libraries but in a damage-control exercise late tonight said the order was being changed to include more newspapers.  The order by the state government evoked criticism from Trinamool ally Congress, Left parties and the intelligentsia which said the decision was "undemocratic, undesirable and worse than censorship." A demand for withdrawal of the...