-The Times of India The Centre is mulling a law to ensure that 22.5% of the Union Budget is exclusively spent for dalit and tribal welfare, a move seen as an outreach to the Congress support base that is bristling at the party's failure on the flagship demand to restore reservation in promotions. A law on dalit and tribal sub-plans would go beyond the symbolic to bind the government to...

-The Hindu     The circumstances surrounding the custodial death of a Dalit woman in Tamil Nadu in 2002 serve as a reminder of the difficulties in securing justice when the offenders are government functionaries This is a case of justice being awarded after a decade. Last month, the Ramanathapuram Sessions Court sentenced eight policemen to rigorous imprisonment, for up to 10 years, for the 2002 custodial killing of Karuppi, a poor Dalit woman,...

-The Times of India LUCKNOW: The Samajwadi Party government in Uttar Pradesh has made women from poor rural background direct beneficiaries ofLohiaGrameenAwasYojana and has allotted Rs520 crore for the scheme to provide shelter to homeless rural populace of the state, which would be launched today. War widows need not even confirm to the income criteria to be beneficiaries under the scheme. People who are not yet on the list of BPL survey...

-The Hindu   The Dalit-Bahujan theory or Ambedkarism cannot negotiate with funny theories of sociologists like Ashis Nandy. The best way to counter them is to write a better theory Utsa Patnaik, a noted economist said in a small note that she circulated "Ashis Nandy had earlier made approving remarks on the 1988 Deorala burning to death of a young widow in the name of sati (terming it a courageous act in a...

-New Indian Express The Milita Dalit Mahamancha, a federation of pro-dalit organisations in the State, on Thursday demanded strict implementation of laws to stop growing atrocities against dalit, tribals and women in the State. The members of Mahamancha took out a rally demanding that violation of human rights in the Posco area should be stopped and police prevented from going there. Criticising the State Government for ignoring the rights of Dalits and tribals,...