If pain had a face, it could be Narayan Sonawane’s. The 45-year-old Dalit farmer keeps scratching a shaving wound on his face till it bleeds, and makes him flinch. The pain, perhaps, momentarily takes his mind off the gruesome reality outside his hut — a seven acre plot that used to be a Dalit cremation ground until a year ago. In June 2010, it was usurped by upper caste Maratha farmer...

Why did they attack Team Anna man Prashant Bhushan? In the twisted mind of Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga, it was some sort of glorious act. “God give us the power to complete our mission,” he tweeted before it. The mission: a coward’s attack on eminent lawyer and human rights activist Prashant Bhushan by Bagga and two of his friends, Inder Verma and Vishnu Gupta. On October 13, the three men...

Full text of the speech delivered by the Comptroller and Auditor General to young police officers at the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel National Police Academy in Hyderabad on October 11, 2011. I am happy to be present today at this premiere training institution to address a group of young officers at the threshold of their careers, as well as senior officers occupying responsible positions in the State Police forces. In a world...

Fourteen-year-old ShaFat Ahmad works as a domestic helper in the house of a Srinagar-based government employee in Kashmir. His younger sister embroiders shawls in an unregistered textile venture in her native village of Beeru. "When my Father first brought me here, my employer promised to send me to school," ShaFat told IPS. Though he is keen to pursue his education, he has yet to attend a single class. The Ahmed siblings' story...

The essay attracted the ire of Hindutva activists because it talks about 300 different versions of the epic Most academicians at Delhi University are feeling betrayed by their own fraternity, the reason — the Academic Council's recent decision to drop from the history syllabus a celebrated essay by the late scholar and linguist A.K. Ramanujan on the Ramayana, despite intense opposition from the history department. The essay, “Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five examples...