The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it was incumbent upon the Haryana Government to provide protection to the victims of caste violence in Mirchpur village in Hisar district. The apex court bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and C.K. Prasad said the failure to provide protection would be viewed seriously. The Dalits (Balmikis) of Mirchpur were targets of violence by the upper caste Jats on April 21. As many as 150...

Taking a serious view of 150 Dalit families from Mirchpur village in Haryana's Hisar district being forced to leave the village after two of them were killed allegedly by the dominant Jat community, the Supreme Court on Monday issued a stern notice to the Haryana Government for its response to a petition highlighting their plight. Mirchpur, about 150 km from Delhi, is a large village comprising about 1,700 Jat (dominant caste)...

Monsanto licencees have earned over Rs 1,500 crore since 2002. A quiet but determined battle is being fought in the courts, and outside, by US agricultural biotech giant Monsanto, its Indian affiliates and seed lobbyists to free the prices of genetically modified Bt cotton from state government control. At stake is huge business running into several thousand crore of rupees, with royalty alone on the Bt cotton seeds grossing over Rs...

Newly released National Sample Survey data shows that the proportion of students in private educational institutions has increased at the cost of those in government institutions, but private education remains affordable only to upper classes. Meanwhile, expenditure on education, particularly private education, is growing much faster than household budgets. The NSS 64th round (2007-8) records data on participation and expenditure on education after a gap of 11 years. The NSS...

The Indian Electricity Act, 2003, initially envisaged that the appropriate governments shall endeavour to supply electricity to all areas including villages and hamlets (Section 6), thus placing the responsibility for ensuring rural electricity supply on state governments. The UPA-I government amended this section to read as follows after detailed deliberations internally and with opposition parties: the concerned state government and the central government shall jointly endeavour to provide access to...