-The Indian Express Kutch (Gujarat): Bhajan Singh, 62, remembers the time curious villagers turned up to see a borewell his father Gopal Singh had dug up. The year was 1969 and it was the first time Sumrasar village, near Bhuj in Kutch district, had had a borewell. Few had ever seen it work, as they depended entirely on rainwater for the barely one crop they harvested a year. Originally from Pakistan, Gopal...

-The Hindu     With the closing of relief camps in Muzaffarnagar, even the meagre food support has disappeared. As the winter cold descends this year on Muzaffarnagar and Shamli districts in Western U.P., some 20,000 people will camp in makeshift unofficial camps amidst squalor and official neglect, or survive in small rented tenements or with relatives - exiles from the villages of their birth. Three months after one of the grimmest communal outbreaks...

-The Indian Express Lucknow: Local clerics in nearly 30 Muslim dominated villages in Sambhal district have given a call from Mosques to boycott the polio immunisation drive to pressure the government into making their villages part of Moradabad district. The clerics have also told villagers to stop sending their children to school, forbidden them from attending political rallies, and banned the entry of politicians into the villages. Any family that disobeys will be...

-The Hindustan Times A people who have never fought each other in history are today bitterly estranged, fearful and angry. ‘Not even during the Partition riots of 1947 did a drop of blood flow in our villages', they repeatedly told us. And today, some 50 lie dead, and 50,000 have fled their homes in terror. Cramped into makeshift camps in madrasas sand Mosques, many resolve never to return to the land...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The National Commission for Minorities (NCM) chairperson, Wajahat Habibullah, today said he would urge the Prime Minister to ensure speedy rehabilitation of Muzaffarnagar riot victims at Monday's National Integration Council (NIC) meeting. "According to official figures, nearly 44,500 Muslims have been displaced from their villages and have taken shelter in nearby schools and Mosques in Muslim-dominated villages. I will urge the Prime Minister to take up the matter...