Thirteen Dalit families living under an open sky for the past two months at Satpuda village in Chittaurgarh district of rajasthan after their houses on the government's surplus land were destroyed by the people of dominant castes have demanded action against the culprits and land allotment under the ongoing “Prashasan Gaon Ke Sang” (administration with villages) campaign. Influential people of Satpuda demolished the houses of Meghwal and Kalbelia Dalits settled for...

The undersigned demand that the plan to link the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) to Aadhaar (or UID) be revoked immediately. This is an extremely dangerous move that threatens to cause havoc in MGNREGA's fragile structure. The Ministry of Rural Development has put out a tender (dated October 11, 2010) worth Rs.2,162 crore to engage “service providers” for MGNREGA under a “public private partnership” model. The contract includes...

Friday’s Supreme Court rap to “uncle judges” who favour lawyers related to them has opened a Pandora’s box, with state-level lawyers’ bodies claiming to be flooded with phone calls from citizens and moving to mount pressure on the courts. Several state bar councils plan to meet or write to chief justices and the Centre, armed with resolutions urging judges to seek transfer if they have relatives practising law in their courts....

Bengal is among three states that have opposed a human resource development ministry proposal to set up a national watchdog to monitor school textbooks adopted by education boards. The other two dissenting states are Gujarat and Orissa. Fourteen states and Union territories have supported the idea, though. The ministry had sought the opinion of the states and the Union territories on the proposal to set up a National Textbook Council (NTC) that...

NIIRA RADIA, the lobbyist at the heart of India’s audacious multi-billion telecom swindle, inaugurated a Krishna temple she funded in south Delhi on her birthday — that, interestingly, coincides with Indira Gandhi’s. Those present on the occasion said Radia prayed for long, presumably seeking divine intervention to wriggle out of the country’s biggest scandal. Before the temple visit, notices from the country’s Enforcement Directorate (ED), Income Tax (IT) Department and the...