BANWARA, India – In the fall of 2006, Gita Devi was pregnant with her sixth child when her family fell on hard times. A severe drought made it more difficult than ever to find farm work here in India’s northeastern plains. The family couldn’t afford food. It was unable to get a government ration card to buy grains and rice at steep discounts, even though it clearly was poor enough to...

The media's failure to recruit Dalits is a betrayal of the constitutional guarantees of equality and fraternity. There were almost none in 1992, and there are almost none today: Dalits in the newsrooms of India's media organisations. Stories from the lives of close to 25 per cent of Indians (Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) are unlikely to be known — much less broadcast or written about. Unless, of course, the stories are...

A report sent to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) by the NGO, Navsarjan, has revealed that dalits in Gujarat are frequently forced to leave their native villages because of clashes with members of forward castes. Denial of entry into temples is another reason for dalit migration in the state, the report states. The NHRC has taken serious note of the allegations made in the report. Earlier this month, it issued...

The Centre is planning a few amendments to key education reform bills whose legislative progress has been stalled by opposition to several of their clauses. The Telegraph had reported how private educational institutions had been arguing that the “draconian” bills would make it difficult for new colleges and universities to be opened, and would threaten institutional heads with stringent punishment for minor mishaps. Human resource development ministry sources now say they propose...

A day after Newsline highlighted that the AIIMS administration had not implemented most recommendations of the Sukhadeo Thorat Committee that probed allegations of Caste discrimination on the campus, the institute re-appointed Thorat, a former chairman of the UGC, to evaluate the status of implementation of his suggestions. Sources said that the decision was taken hours after an “informal communication” from the Union Health Ministry to end the agitation by MBBS students. There...