-The Hindu   Rajasthan records the highest number of cases followed by U.P. There is a 17 per cent increase in registered cases of atrocities against members of the Schedules Castes in 2013 as compared to 2012 and the conviction rate is around 23 per cent, Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Thaawar Chand Gehlot said on Friday. He was speaking at a two-day conference of ministers and principal secretaries dealing with Scheduled Castes,...

-IPS News MALKANGIRI (Odisha)- Scattered across 31 remote hilltop villages on a mountain range that towers 1,500 to 4,000 feet above sea level, in the Malkangiri district of India's eastern Odisha state, the Upper Bonda people are considered one of this country's most ancient tribes, having barely altered their lifestyle in over a thousand years. Resistant to contact with the outside world and fiercely skeptical of modern development, this community of under...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: India's poorest and socially underprivileged people seem to have benefited the least from a set of government programmes launched over the past decade to reduce personal expenses on health care, research suggests. A team of health economists has found that the financial burden of health care on India's poorest 20 per cent, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Muslims has outpaced that on the richest 20 per cent and...

-The Hindu Mangalore (Karnataka): The Department of Food and Civil Supplies is going ahead with its initiative to provide clean and safe cooking fuel to the poor. All districts have been told to push for providing liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) connection to below the poverty line (BPL) ration card holders for free. Department Commissioner Harsh Gupta told The Hindu that field-level reports had shown that there was preference for LPG connection. But...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The M.P. Bezbaruah committee suggested in its report to the Centre last month that a law be drafted specifically to prevent discrimination against people from the Northeast living outside the region. The panel was set up after the lynching of Arunachal Pradesh student Nido Tania in Delhi's Lajpat Nagar in January this year. So far, only the committee's push for a debate on the need for an anti-racism...