-The Hindu A precise caste census is difficult, but the data will be useful to drive social policy The idea of a national caste census might be abhorrent when the stated policy is to strive for a casteless society, but it will be useful to establish statistical justification for preserving caste-based affirmative action programmes. It may also be a legal imperative, considering that courts want ‘quantifiable data’ to support the existing levels...

-ThePrint.in We have for the first time a group that can spearhead a nation-wide movement for employment. Conventional wisdom holds that unemployment does not lend itself to political mobilisation in India. You can launch mass movements on generic issues like price rise, corruption or on sectoral issues like caste reservations or farm laws. But you cannot create a similar movement on rising unemployment, no matter how high the joblessness figure is. A...

-The Hindu It is required to document both the disadvantages and privileges of various communities in India At the recently concluded Parliament session, there was a demand to lift the 50% cap on reservation imposed by the Supreme Court through the legislative route. With the 2021 Census coming up, several political parties have demanded a nation-wide caste census. They argue that a Socio-Economic Caste Census is the only way to make a...

-The Hindu Opposition members question government’s commitment to democratic norms The Lok Sabha on Monday passed three Bills in 20 minutes as disruption by Opposition members over the Pegasus snooping controversy and the farms continued into the last week of the monsoon session of Parliament. The government also introduced three Bills in the din, prompting Congress leaders Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and Manish Tewari to question the government’s commitment to democratic norms. RSP’s N.K. Premachandran...

-The Hindu The case for reservations for women and transgender persons in State jobs and higher education The Bihar government recently announced 33% horizontal reservation for women in State engineering and medical colleges. While reservation for Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) is referred to as vertical reservation, horizontal reservation refers to the equal opportunity provided to other categories of beneficiaries, such as...