by Rupesh Kumar Inter-caste marriage and its ramifications in a caste society are at once personal and political for me. As a Dalit man married to a Nair woman, that too in a Hindu style wedding, I am faced with a number of complex issues, including questions about my political stands, from dalits as well …
State Atrocities VS Oppressed Representation
Dinesh Maurya Earlier Forbesganj (Arariya, Bihar) and recently Nalanda (in Bihar) and Paramakudi (Tamil Nadu) are some examples of atrocities on the oppressed people directly involving the state machinery in the name of law and order. But before going into details, it is first necessary to know what does atrocity mean? The term atrocity, …
Rashtriya Dalit Prerna Sthal
[What is the ‘Dalit Prerna Sthal’? What is its purpose? Why was it built? The inscription shown in the picture above, displayed prominently in the ‘Rashtriya Dalit Smarak’ (picture below), provides many of the answers. We are publishing here the full text of the inscription for our readers. It was copied by hand, so some …
BJP’s small state theory
Kancha Ilaiah With the Telangana question reaching a climactic stage it is necessary to examine the implication of carving out small states for issues such as reservations in general and the OBC reservations in particular. Dr B.R. Ambedkar argued for small states and a strong Centre to put a check on feudal upper caste forces …
Dismantling ‘Dalit’ with a Poisonous PIL
Anand Teltumbde Will the removal of the “forward” scheduled castes from the list of SC reservations benefit the “backward” SCs? Recently a public interest litigation (PIL) was filed in the Supreme Court for excluding some five to 10 named castes and tribes from the list of the scheduled castes (SCs) and scheduled tribes (STs) for the reason that they had …
RTI activist targeted in Orissa for exposing ‘ghost ponds’
Asian Human Rights Commission Statement Orissa is one of the states in India that has failed to assimilate the spirit of the 73rd amendment of the Indian constitution, which provides a constitutional framework to the Panchayat Raj. The state has also failed to appreciate the Right to Information Act, 2005. The state’s bureaucracy behaves as …
Indigenous technology of climate prediction among a Tamil Dalit community
by Thamburaj Dharmaraj Valluvar community is referred extensively in ancient Tamil literature as ‘masters of astronomical calculations as well as predictions based on that’. The author of the renowned classical Tamil text ‘Thirukkural’, Thiruvalluvar, is believed to be the offspring of this community. Though it has valid literary and historical evidences of being a literate …
Playing village card
Chandra Bhan Prasad How many Anna supporters are ready to live by his code? A leader’s actions or opinions are measured by his vision which he has acquired over a period of time. So, in a way the actions are context specific. We all know that same thing can have different meanings depending upon the …
Police Atrocities on Adivasis of Saranda Forest: A Fact Sheet
2 Oct 2011 The ‘Saranda’ literally means a forest of seven hundred small hills is also known as the largest Sal Forest in Asia, situated in West Singhbhum district of Jharkhand. Approximately, 10,000 Adivasi families with the population of 1 lakh 25 thousand Adivasis live in the forest. The Adivasis depend on agriculture, forest produces …