Tension prevailed in the Surya Nagar area of this Haryana district Tuesday after stray incidents of violence following a dispute between the members of the Dalit and Jat communities, police said. 'Yesterday (Monday) night a buffalo, belonging to a member of Dalit community, collided with a vehicle that was owned by a Jat youth. At that time there were some heated arguments but the situation was somehow controlled,' a police...

Haryana to hold judicial inquiry into Dalit attack    Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda Thursday said a judicial inquiry will be conducted into the incident of arson attack on the houses of Dalit (Balmiki) community in Hisar district's Mirchpur village. The Dalits of Mirchpur were targets of violence by the dominant upper caste members April 21. As many as 150 Dalit families were driven out of the village after an...

India lives in its villages, Gandhi said. But increasingly, the people of India are dying on its roads. India overtook China to top the world in road fatalities in 2006 and has continued to pull steadily ahead, despite a heavily agrarian population, fewer people than China and far fewer cars than many Western countries. While road deaths in many other big emerging markets have declined or stabilized in recent years,...

Human rights groups combating sexual assault, women's groups and groups working on child rights have come together to reflect on the extent to which the proposed Criminal Law Amendment Bill 2010 addresses concerns on the ground.  The Criminal Law Amendment Bill 2010, being proposed to bring about changes in the criminal laws with respect to protections against sexual assault, has been a subject of discussion and popular misinterpretation in the...

Taking a serious view of recent arson against Balmiki community by upper caste men in Mirchpur in Haryana, the Supreme Court on Wednesday issued a warning to the Bhupinder Singh Hooda government: serious consequences will follow if atrocities against dalits are reported again. Directing the Hisar district administration to build new houses in place of damaged ones of dalits in the village and provide one member of each family with...