For An Informed Ambedkar Age
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Ravindra Kumar Goliya One must be wondering at the title: what is this place, why the journey? What is special about this place? Kundeshwar is a small village in Tikamgarh district in a backward area of Bundelkhand in Madhya Pradesh. It is special because of a boy named Bal Mukund Bharti who was the first …
Barbara Crossette [From The New York Times archives] A brown washcloth in hand to mop his brow under the fiery Indian sun, Kanshi Ram stepped up to the microphones to start a revolution. Tens of thousands of India’s most disadvantaged people – the poor, the powerless, the untouchables – sat along the capital’s stately …
Gail Omvedt [An excerpt from the chapter Navayana Buddhism and the Modern Age from her book Buddhism in India: Challenging Brahmanism and Caste] Apart from Gandhi, another strongly seductive opponent to the fascination for Buddhism emerged in the 1930s. This was Marxism, which was increasingly gathering strength as an ideology among the younger and militant …
Steven R. Weisman [From The New York Times archives] Anyone who finishes third in a local election in India can usually start thinking about retirement. But the recent third-place showing in a parliamentary race by Kanshi Ram, a fiery champion of the rights of untouchables and other low castes, was strong enough to shake …