Gender

Grain banks prove a boon for Dalits

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PATNA: About 150 Grain banks being run in Patna, Bhojpur, Gaya, Jamui and Saharsa districts by Dalit women have come as a great relief for Musahar and other poor families.  Fed up with hunger and poverty, around 2,000 Musahar Dalit women had set up Grain banks in 2002 in about 60 villages under Paliganj subdivision comprising Paliganj and Bikram …

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“Only ash knows the experience of burning”: An Interview with Dalit Writer Jai Prakash Kardam

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   Dr. Jai Prakash Kardam, a prolific Hindi Dalit writer, was born in a poor Dalit family in Ghaziabad, UP. India. He worked as an un-skilled labourer in construction and factories. He worked in different capacities in State/central govt./ Bank, and in Central Secretariat official Language Service (Govt. of India) as Deputy Director. At present, …

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Memoirs of a Public Intellectual: Siddalingaiah

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Review Article by Chandan Gowda  “Ooru-Kéri: An Autobiography,” by Siddalingaiah. Translated from Kannada by S.R.Ramakrishna, published by Sahitya Akademi, 2003. 115 pages1 Rs.60.   Siddalingaiah is a rare figure in contemporary India. A writer, poet, folklorist, academic, founder of Dalit Sangarsha Samhiti and former member of the Karnataka Legislative Council, Siddalingaiah is an exemplary public intellectual. First published in …

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Our Demands

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by thedeathofmerit  The large number of suicides by Dalit students in Indian educational system, especially in premier science and professional colleges and universities, are a mere pointer towards the widespread prevalence of various forms of caste-discrimination and humiliations that our students have to undergo on a regular basis while pursuing their higher education.

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Echoes of stillborn histories

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by thedeathofmerit admin What can we learn from this documentary, ’The Death of Merit’? Bal Mukund Bharti was determined to become a doctor. And his teachers were also very determined: ‘you’ll never pass MBBS’, they told him. Bal Mukund didn’t give up, nor did his family. Father, mother, married sister, uncle, aunt– they were all determined to …