Features

Of Laws, Cows and People’s Mutinies: Will the beef ban in BJP-ruled states fuel a new Mutiny?

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  Cynthia Stephen The Gau-Vansh Vadh Pratishedh (Sanshodhan) Vidheyak (Prohibition of slaughter of cow-progeny Bill) just passed in Madhya Pradesh empowers the government to prosecute any person found slaughtering a cow or even transporting the calf for the purpose of slaughter. Anyone found guilty of this act would face seven years of imprisonment and a …

Features

4.5 Percent OBC Religious Minority Sub-quota: A Disservice To Secular Nationalism

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  Ashok Yadav 01. Overwhelming majority of population who have been discriminated against and oppressed on the basis of their caste identity since time immemorial and the history of bloody religious conflicts before, during and after independence in 1947 make social justice and secularism the two pillars on which the entire democratic structure of our …

Thought

The ‘Precariat’ Strikes

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Anand Teltumbde The occupation of the Indu Mills near Chaityabhoomi in Mumbai by dalit youth demanding that an Ambedkar memorial should come up there is a heartening development. In neo-liberal India, dalits are a significant part of the “precariat” – a section of the people with no job security, indeed, with no prospect of employment, …

Atrocities

Authorities must ensure justice for victims of Kalinganagar shootings six years ago

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Amnesty International Public Statement [AI Index: ASA 20/001/2012 1 January 2012 (embargoed for release at 0001 GMT on 1 January 2012)] Authorities in Orissa should no longer delay justice for the victims and survivors of the Kalinganagar police shootings six years ago when 12 adivasis (Indigenous people) were killed and 37 others injured, Amnesty International said today. …

Policy

Reforming Scheduled Castes Sub-Plan (SCSP) / Tribal Sub-Plan (TSP)

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Recommendations on Reforming Scheduled Castes Sub-Plan (SCSP) / Tribal Sub-Plan (TSP) — National Advisory Council [The Working Group of the National Advisory Council (NAC) on Dalit Issues have prepared a set of Draft Recommendations to be considered by the National Advisory Council on the reform of the Scheduled Caste Sub Plan. These Draft Recommendations are …

Thought

Caste in India

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Gail Omvedt [Written in the year 2008] (A Reply to the Hindu Council of UK essay on “The Caste System”) * I owe thanks to Michael Witzel for his note citing Vedic references on caste and his careful reading of an earlier version of this essay. Introduction The essay submitted by the Hindu Council of …

Thought

Janeu, The Cat’s Cradle

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Gopal Guru (First published in Outlook magazine in March 2009) Brahmins are fashioning new political rhetoric from old stereotypes Let me begin this piece with a dramatic question: what are Brahmins doing in political parties? Let me make it even more dramatic: what are they doing in non-Brahmin, Dalit or Dalit-led parties? If these questions …