-The Hindu Business Line A majority of them take loans from moneylenders and for non-agricultural needs A few years ago when Chayatai Parkhi’s husband Ashok ended his life as he was unable to pay debt taken from banks and moneylenders, Chayatai was forced to take another loan from a moneylender to perform a series of religious rites after the cremation of her husband. Ashok had taken a loan for his daughter’s marriage...

-The Indian Express We hope that our judiciary will exercise its immense constitutional power to lead and supervise a free, fair and speedy investigation into the heinous allegation of brutal rape and the completely illegal Forced Cremation and illegal detention by the UP police. People who died of the plague or some other contagious disease were carried out of the village and their bodies were burnt without the dignity of a proper...

-DNA   Baba Ramdev was not there. Nor was it the Ramlila Maidan of Delhi. But lathis were used - on the dalits of Sanand, who had experienced a similar fate when they were lathi-charged post midnight earlier this week, and the corpse which was placed in the police station to agitate against the ineffective cops, was seized. The body was of Atul Rathod, a resident of Rethal village of Sanand Taluka. The...

If pain had a face, it could be Narayan Sonawane’s. The 45-year-old Dalit farmer keeps scratching a shaving wound on his face till it bleeds, and makes him flinch. The pain, perhaps, momentarily takes his mind off the gruesome reality outside his hut — a seven acre plot that used to be a Dalit cremation ground until a year ago. In June 2010, it was usurped by upper caste Maratha farmer...

In Tamil Nadu, untouchability is so deep-rooted that there are separate burial spaces for Dalits and upper castes even in some urban pockets. “Samarasam ulavum idame Nam vaazhvil kaanaa Samarasam ulavum idame… Jaathiyil melor enrum Thaaznthavar keezhor enrum bethamillathu Ellorum mudivil serndhidum kaadu Thollai inriye thoongidum veedu Ulaginile ithuthaan Nam vaazhvil kaanaa Samarasam ulavum idame…” (Here, in this place pervades equality Which one could not have seen ever in one's lifetime! Steering clear of caste discriminations Such as the high, the low and...