-The Telegraph A panel of experts has watered down a proposal by the UPA government to set up five Minority universities, citing legal hurdles. The committee, headed by Indian Council of Social Science Research chairman Sukhadeo Thorat, has suggested that the institutions be set up as central universities with their focus on minorities, instead of Minority institutions as proposed. The committee submitted its report to the Minority affairs ministry last month, a senior...

-Countercurrents.org   The events of last over two decades have shown us, more than before that the efforts of dividing the nation by communal forces have been a major obstacle to social peace and process of development. In India while the communal violence began with the Jabalpur riot of 1961, it is from last couple of decades especially from 1980s that the divisive politics has tried to drive a wedge between different...

-The Hindu     Present Assembly has 103 Vokkaligas and Lingayats Bidar: As the new government takes over and there are high expectations of "change" on several fronts, a sobering reminder of some things that remain constant is the composition of the Assembly in terms of caste, religion and gender. Dominant castes in the State - Vokkaligas, Brahmins and Lingayats - which are socially and economically strong and have traditionally enjoyed high representation in the...

-New Indian Express Bangalore: Child rights activists are fuming over the Department of Public Instruction's (DPI) recent clarification that no section of the Right to Education (RTE) Act applies to unaided Minority schools, prompting a need to revisit the Supreme Court order of last April. After several ‘misinforming' statements by its own officials on various public platforms, the DPI, on April 24, clarified that "it would take no initiatives to enforce the...

-The Hindu The Supreme Court on Monday declined to stay a Gujarat High Court judgment upholding the constitutional validity of the Centre's scholarship scheme for Minority students in the State. The High Court, in a majority decision in February, had rejected the Narendra Modi government's contention that the pre-matriculation scholarship scheme was discriminatory, and directed it to implement it. Justices P. Sathasivam and M.Y. Eqbal, while issuing notice on the government's appeal against...