The Haryana Government has implemented several new schemes for those belonging to weaker sections of society, Public Health Engineering Minister Kiran Choudhry said at Tosham in Bhiwani district on Monday. Addressing a gathering after laying the foundation stone for a chaupal for Backward Classes, she said that the Ambedkar Medhavi Chhatra Yojana had been implemented for talented students belonging to Scheduled Castes and Other Backward Classes. Under the scheme, scholarships ranging from...

PREGNANT WOMEN in Kasargod district are fighting the endosulfan tragedy in their own way — by opting for abortion. A sacrifice conducted in silence, even a 10-year campaign against the chemical has not yet convinced the government to ban its use. Without the intervention of the welfare state, they are now released from the fear of death and chronic disease. They have seen enough. They have lost many in a short...

The story of Khairlanji as a story of the plight of the Scheduled Castes in scores of villages has joined the pantheon of protest literature of the Dalit movement with the staging of Marathi play Tanta Mukta Gaon (Dispute-Free Village). The Maharashtra government in 2010 declared the village of Khairlanji, infamous for the brutal killings of four members of the Bhotmange family, a “Tanta Mukta Gaon” under a government programme which...

Patriarchal societies are part of the problem of altered sex ratios, female infanticide and foeticide. This needs to be acknowledged and changed. India's sex ratio, among children aged 0-6 years, is alarming. The ratio has declined from 976 females (for every 1000 males) in 1961 to 914 in 2011. Every national census has documented a decline in the ratio, signalling a ubiquitous trend. Preliminary data from the 2011 census have recorded...

A bill drafted by the National Advisory Council to check communal violence seeks to impose greater accountability on public officials in tackling violence or discrimination against vulnerable groups. The council, headed by Sonia Gandhi, today took up the Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence (Access to Justice and Reparations) Bill, prepared by one of its working groups. The council has decided to put the draft bill in the public domain to invite...