By stopping social security pensions, the Karnataka government has put the lives of over 10 lakh poor in peril. Naveen Basavaraj Kuntoji is nine years old and suffers from cerebral palsy. His movements are greatly restricted, and it looks like he is in great pain every time he valiantly wills his body to do something. When he is hungry, he slowly lifts his hand and points to his mouth. When this...

-The Hindustan Times Two years ago, nine-year-old Vishal got beaten up real bad by the class bullies at the government school in Lal Kuan in south Delhi. The bullies also tore up some of his school texts and threw away others. After that day, a petrified Vishal just couldn’t muster up enough courage to go back to school. Worse still, he couldn’t tell his parents — Radhe Shyam and Manju — about...

-The Times of India PHAGWARA: Dalit residents of Mahan Singh Wala village in Sangrur district working as farm labourers have approached the Punjab Scheduled Caste Commission after jats not only passed a resolution imposing wages for various menial jobs but also warned them of social boycott if the rules are breached. The resolution, which reeks of caste-based discrimination, has been passed under the name of the village panchayat. Pamphlets spelling out the...

Araria, Bihar: Exactly a year ago, just before the rains, Kumiya Devi got her three-decimal (1,306.8-square foot) plot at Kajra in Araria district under the Mahadalit Vikas Yojana, the Nitish Kumar government’s showpiece scheme to distribute land to landless Dalits.   Before she could build her home, a seasonal stream flooded the plot and her 10-year-old son Aklu drowned in it while going to school. Reason: there was no approach road to...

I read Aman Sethi's piece on the Saranda Development Plan (“Nine months on, police camps sole development in Saranda plan”, June 4) with great interest but with greater anguish. Before I deal with his main charge — that private mining interests are behind the SDP — I want to lay out what the SDP is all about. It is the first systematic experiment in combining a security-oriented and development-focussed approach...