-The Indian Express The Sachar Committee report said financial resources and physical targets available to minorities, especially Muslims The Congress-led UPA created a multi-sectoral development programme for 90 Minority Concentrated Districts (MCD) in the country but a review panel scrutinising implementation of the Sachar Committee recommendations did not perceive any special concern for these districts. The panel said the government neither properly assessed development deficit in these districts, nor made adequate financial...

-Live Mint Panel to review Sachar committee proposals says conditions of Muslims not changed perceptibly since 2006 New Delhi: In a politically uncomfortable revelation ahead of the general election, the interim report of a high-level panel says that a determined policy thrust by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government has done little to improve the social and economic enfranchisement of India's Muslim minority. The interim report of the panel appointed by...

-The Indian Express Govt officials, opposition question Mamata doles to Muslims Kolkata: Communal clashes have jumped in rural Bengal, police records show. Such incidents, annually between 12 and 40 for five years until 2012, peaked at 106 last year. Government officials fear that in an election year, the growing conflict could lead to polarisation of the electorate. West Bengal has always been considered a peaceful state in terms of communal amity. But the...

-The Indian Express The gangrape may have brought the tribal councils of this West Bengal district to notoriety, but it wasn't the first sexual abuse on their orders. What is more at play here though is growing outside interference in a region considered a vote bank, writes Madhuparna Das. On January 29 evening, 900 people of a village in Birbhum district's Labhpur block gathered near the hut of their headman. The hut,...

-The Indian Express Year on year from June to December, communal clashes more than treble. Patna: Bihar has seen 87 major and minor communal clashes between June and December 2013, over three times the 24 incidents during the corresponding period of 2012. This coincides with the split of the ruling JD(U) with the BJP, an alliance of 17 years, and comes after seven-and-a-half years without a single major communal clash. A monthly break-up...