-The Hindustan Times Kaithal: Just when the elders from both Dalit and Ror communities were deliberating on putting an end to caste tension at Pabnawa village, a group of youths from the dominating community allegedly attacked and injured two Dalits on late Tuesday night. One of the injured Ram Mehar, 23, was admitted to the advance trauma centre of Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh, in a...

-Live Mint Panchayat-related caste violence continues unabated and has become a part of the social reality today In ancient India, the panchayat system was based on the age-old caste system, social status and family. Although the local self-government concept was introduced in 1882, it took more than 100 years for the local self-government institutions to become a part of the Indian Constitution. While tremendous possibilities have been opened up in the...

-Live Mint Despite being declared unconstitutional by SC, ‘khaps' continue to hold sway in parallel with the state machinery Rohtak/Bhiwani: Ravinder Gehlawat and his wife Shilpa had been married for less than four months when they were marched out of their village-Dharana in Jhajjar district of Haryana-by men of the local community and warned never to return. Their fate was sealed on 24 April 2009 when the local khap panchayat, which translates...

-PTI BANGALORE: Padayatras, door-to-door campaigns and public rallies are the second choice for some senior political leaders in Karnataka who have realised the impact social media can make on people today and have quickly opened accounts on Facebook and Twitter. While social media provides politicians an additional platform to campaign, the real competition is who gets the maximum hits. Young politicians like Krishna Byregowda and Priya Krishna, both Congress, have had accounts for...

-Live Mint Dominant caste groups in the state have found their own ways to capture and preserve power Dravidian political parties, which came into existence with the objective of achieving social equality, have been in power for more than four decades in Tamil Nadu, yet caste-based discrimination against the Dalits has remained a fact of life in the southern state. That's in contrast with neighbouring Kerala, which has emerged as a...