Indian govt's revised rules for National Overseas Scholarship for Dalit & marginalized students prohibit research in "Indian Culture/heritage/History/Social studies"(left)
Earlier versions had no such restrictions. In fact, 17 seats were for humanities-social sciences (right)
The new guidelines, as this detailed Telegraph story points out, will "restrict research in foreign universities on caste..gender inequality..Brahminical cultural traditions, poverty in the context of caste." telegraphindia.com/india/national…
Why is the govt so afraid of radical Ambedkarite scholarship?!
This attempt to censor academic research comes at a time when there has been Hindu-right backlash to the anti-caste movt successfully getting Cal State universities to add caste as a protected category.
NCPCR raids two children's homes linked to human right's activist Harsh Mander.
Having reported on the NCPCR, never before have I seen the apex child right's body, with its political appointees, being reduced to a political tool to this extent.
Earlier this year, it trained its guns on Shaheen Bagh anti-CAA protestors for allegedly inflicting "mental trauma" on their children.
Last year, the NCPCR issued a notice to Congress' Priyanka Gandhi for a video of few children raising anti-Modi slogans in front of her.
Last month it got the Delhi Police’s Cyber Cell to file an FIR against fact-checking site Alt News co-founder @zoo_bear for calling out an abusive troll by tweeting the latter's display pic with his daughter (her face blurred).
Modi's stress on raising the legal age of marriage, a seemingly progressive step, will criminalise & exacerbate the existing vulnerabilities of Dalit & Adivasi communities in rural India, instead of empowering its women.
My op-ed based on NFHS data:
NFHS data shows how higher education levels lead to delayed age of marriage. However, just 10% ST & 15% SC women have completed 12+ years of schooling as compared to 30% general category & 21% OBC women making a case for extending right to education for all up to 18 yrs.
The lowest wealth quintile, which is most likely to marry off their girls early out of socio-economic necessities, have 45% of the ST & 25.9% SC households, as compared to only 9% of the general category.
The UK media first reported on caste discrimination in 2010, a decade prior to #Casteism_In_Cisco, when a Dalit employee at a law firm approached the employment tribunal against his Sikh employers. Link to my 2013 story on the case & UK's anti-caste movt archive.indianexpress.com/news/uk-wakes-…
The law firm employee was harassed & abused for his inter-caste marriage with a Sikh Jat colleague, & eventually fired. A member from Caste Watch UK found his home vandalised after he deposed before the tribunal as an expert witness in the case.
UK has seen a long struggle by anti-caste groups to include caste discrimination as a form of race discrimination under the Equality Act 2010. Lobbying by upper-caste Hindu-Sikh orgs hv ensured that each time the UK gov came close to enacting the amendment, it abandoned its plans
#Thread : A treasure trove of online resources that you can access for free right now- Theatre, Books, Movies, Knowledge. 1. Shakespeare's Globe is streaming six of its productions for free ( starting with Hamlet yesterday @The_Globe ): shakespearesglobe.com/watch/
2. National Theatre has launched #NationalTheatreAtHome for streaming its productions ( Jane Eyre this Thursday @NTLive ): nationaltheatre.org.uk/nt-at-home
These will be available on their YouTube channels for a limited period from the date of streaming: Globe (15 days) & NT (7 days)
A report by Jan Sahas on the impact of COVID-19 on migrant construction workers shows that of the 3196 labourers surveyed, 90% lost their source of income in the last 3 weeks, 62% don't have any info on govt's emergency welfare measures, 42% have no ration left for even a day
94%workers do not have the Building & Construction Workers identity card making them ineligible for availing benefits from Rs 32,000 crore BOCW fund. Extrapolated to the 55 million labourers employed in the construction sector, this amounts to an exclusion of 51 million workers
More then half the workers earn just Rs 200 to 400 perday to support an average family of four persons. The central govt's daily wage increase of Rs 20 for MNREGA workers is of little help when 70% of the total labourers don't have MNREGA job cards.