A new house bearing Tara Chand’s name awaits to be occupied by his family. The house was constructed by the government around four months ago, claim members of the Balmiki community in Mirchpur, Haryana. Tara Chand and his physically challenged daughter were burnt alive in April last year during a clash between the Balmiki and Jat communities. His wife and three sons moved to Hisar. On Sunday, the only telling signs...

Despite a tortuous route marked by twists and turns, allegations and counter-allegations, amid public protests and fears of further violence in neighbouring Haryana, the Rohini sessions court which pronounced the judgment in the Mirchpur caste violence incident convicting 15 people and acquitting 82 others has set a record of sorts by completing the trial in just over nine months. On April 21, 2010, 70-year-old Tara Chand and his physically-challenged daughter, Suman,...

-The Hindu   82 acquitted by Delhi court Fifteen people have been convicted and 82 acquitted by a Sessions court here in the much talked about Mirchpur killing case in which a physically challenged girl and her septuagenarian Dalit father were charred to death in neighbouring Haryana. In the ghastly incident of caste violence that rocked Haryana on April 21 last year, a mob belonging to the dominant Jat community had also burnt...

In the name of God, hapless girls are still being made to become devadasis which in stark terms means being raped by the priests, secretly auctioned to brothels and finally dying of AIDS. Deebashree Mohanty speaks to a few of these unfortunate women who died everyday of their life for a farce called service of the God I was nine when I got married to my village deity Yellamma. The mahajan,...

The Anna Hazare agitation is showing signs of becoming a political and social monster. There are several disturbing elements already in evidence, perhaps more disturbing than the awfulness of corruption. Whatever one thinks of the anti-corruption bill drafted by the government, the agitation, by the day, is growing scarier. There is a combustible mix here of hero worship, cult propagation, populist absolutism and irrational exuberance, mass hysteria, de-politicization, militarization, and,...