-The Hindu Recent Census data appear to inadequately reflect India’s linguistic composition, and are inconsistent with global ideas The story, “Death of Jagmohan, the Elephant”, by Bengali writer Mahasweta Devi, is about the death of an elephant. For a reader, the story may appear to be about a rather “big death”, but what the writer wanted to say was that there are also many “small deaths”. They include the deaths of Dalits...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: In its latest report, the Global Slavery Index 2018 estimates that on any given day in 2016 there were nearly 8 million people living in “modern slavery” in India — a claim strongly contested by the government on the grounds that its parameters were poorly defined and too wide-ranging. The report said that in terms of prevalence, there were 6.1 victims for every thousand people. Among...

-The Indian Express Rising cases of leprosy among Adivasis call for urgent public action. India officially eliminated Leprosy in 2005 by bringing the Prevalence Rate below 1/10000 at the national level. However, the National Health Policy 2017 (NHP), which will guide the health policy direction of the country over the next decade or so, still has elimination of Leprosy as a national level target. It is highly unlikely that India achieves elimination...

-The Times of India MEERUT: According to human rights advocacy group Amnesty International, in the first six months of 2018, 100 hate crimes have been committed against people from marginalised groups including dalits, Adivasis, members of racial or religious minority groups and transgender people across the country. Uttar Pradesh, with 18 such crimes, had the highest number among Indian states, followed by Gujarat with 13 cases, Rajasthan (eight) and Tamil Nadu...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: The government has prematurely withdrawn a scheme under which shopkeepers would get an incentive of up to Rs 1,000 for accepting payments using the Unified Payments Interface (UPI). Another one providing customers cashbacks of up to Rs 500 has also been withdrawn and replaced with a scheme that provides rewards of up to Rs 150 but only for Bhim app users. The move to withdraw the incentives...