-TheWire.in As much at risk as the farmers if the laws are not repealed, the Dalits are also determined not to be used by the BJP to turn the protests against the new agriculture laws into an issue of landowners’ rights. New Delhi: On January 7, Thursday, when 2,000 labourers of the Punjab Khet Mazdoor Union (PKMU) began their journey from Dabwali, Punjab, to the Tikri border between Haryana and Delhi to...

-TheWire.in The police action follows a complaint lodged by a Bajrang Dal organiser from Bulandshahr, alleging that the seller was promoting communal disharmony. New Delhi: A Muslim shopkeeper in Uttar Pradesh’s Bulandshahr was detained by the police on Tuesday for selling shoes embossed with the word ‘Thakur’ on the sole with the authorities accusing him of inciting communal hatred. Thakur is a common Hindu name, normally associated with a so-called ‘upper’ caste. The shopkeeper,...

-Newsclick.in No scheme touches them, no law reaches them – but they hope that a better deal for farmers will benefit them. At the Ghazipur border between Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, Manish and a few of his friends have joined the farmers’ dharna only a few days back. They live in Baghpat district, barely a few dozen kilometres from the protest site but it could be another continent, or another age. “In the...

-TheWire.in Researchers have found that small and marginal farmers and Dalit landless labourers are worst affected by the region's agrarian distress. Sangrur/Patiala (Punjab): In the villages of Punjab, strike a conversation on farming  expenses with anyone, and they will say, “Karja tan hai hi (Of course, we have taken loans).” It’s these loans – from both institutional and non-institutional sources – that largely help the rural economy run in the state. But...

-NDTV "UP is blithely undermining that very Constitution..." the letter's signatories said, pointing to high court rulings that said choosing a life partner was a "fundamental right" New Delhi: The Uttar Pradesh government's controversial anti-conversion ordinance has transformed the state into "the epicentre of politics of hate, division and bigotry", a letter signed by 104 former IAS officers, including former National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon, former Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao and former...