-The Hindu     Action, not just offering flowers, will be the real tribute As the nation pays tribute to Dr. B.R. Ambedkar on his 122 birth anniversary (April 14), one would realise that much more remains to be done to achieve his aim of social equality for the suppressed classes. A principal architect in drafting the Constitution, he made significant efforts at giving political rights and social freedom to Dalits. However, till date,...

-The Times of India   CHITALIYA (RAJKOT): In the villages of Jasdan taluka in drought-hit Saurashtra, dalit women prefer to remain silent. That's for the fear of the upper castes in a state whose chief minister Narendra Modi is busy trying to conjure up an eclectic image to subserve his perceived prime ministerial ambitions for 2014 polls. "Those people (upper castes) will abuse us again if we speak," mumbled one of the women,...

-Bloomberg The corpse of Indian farmer Bengali Singh burned to ash atop a blazing funeral pyre on the banks of the river Ganges in 2006. Five years later, the dead man was recorded as being paid by India's $33 billion rural jobs program to dig an irrigation canal in Jharkhand state. Officials in his village and the surrounding region used at least 500 identities, including those of Singh, a disabled child of...

-The Hindu As the world observed World Water Day last week, Bolivian water activist Pablo Solon narrates how his countrymen forced the repeal of a water privatisation attempt by the government What began as an ordinary citizen’s protest against water privatisation laid out the path for a bigger revolution that eventually paved way for Bolivia’s first indigenously elected government. With worldwide discussions for sustainable management of fresh water resources gaining ground in a...

-The Hindu New, more fair and transparent norms for iron ore mining are now being put in place in many States Hit by debilitating mining curbs (including an outright ban in some States) and a clampdown on exports through high duties, India’s iron ore industry today is a pale shadow of what it was for much of the last decade, despite some recent forward movement on restarting iron ore mining in Karnataka,...