'Human rights violations are there in rural areas and in cities. In rural areas it is crude and in the open. In urban areas it is well hidden.' 'Awareness has grown several fold. India has 160 national and state human rights institutions. No other country in the world has this.' 'Unfortunately the right to association, right to assembly, freedom of expression, right to protest and discuss are all being curtailed systematically one by one.'
AG Mukul Rohatgi led the Indian delegation at the UN Human Rights Council.
'One murder gets national coverage because of political connections.' 'The other two and the brutal torture? Not much outrage.' 'Are Dalit and OBC lives worth less?'
The Kerala police were the most sensitised to the rights of those arrested while that of Jharkhand and Gujarat the least.
'The police will give weightage to the socially strong.' 'The dominant caste is usually a powerful person, while the scheduled caste is normally powerless.' 'That is why FIRs are not registered.' 'Most of these complaints are by very poor people against very rich powerful people.'
'You can't go on creating division and rhetoric of hate.' 'It comes to roost. We are seeing the first glimpses of that in the state elections.'
'They are innovating and a new Dalit leadership could be seen at the horizon'
Cases of atrocities on scheduled castes increased from 45,000 in 2014 to 40,800 2016. Cases of atrocities on scheduled tribes went from 11,451 in 2015 to 6,568 in 2016.
The NCERT has cited 'overlapping' and 'irrelevant' as reasons for dropping those portions from the syllabus.
Wednesday's Vikravandi by-election has become a referendum on the Stalin government, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Dominic Xavier is puzzled by the NIA's campaign against Leftist activists and intellectuals and wonders if we will ever get to know the truth behind all these arrests.
The manifesto, on the lines of the party's promise in Delhi in 2015, also says the AAP government will set up Aam Aadmi canteens at sub-division and district levels where one time meal will be available for Rs 5, and reduce the power tariff to half for usages up to 400 unit.
The tributes to Fr Stan by his associates and his co-accused (which were read out) provided a clue to why his death continues to touch so many.
A bill seeking to explicitly ban caste discrimination has been introduced in the California Senate by a Democratic lawmaker, which, if passed, could make America's most populous state also the country's first to outlaw caste-based bias.
'In Hindu society, marriage is not between a man and a woman, but between their castes; politicians do not ask for human votes, but for caste votes....' 'Have you heard of such nonsense anywhere else in the world? And we claim we are civilised!' 'One or two or a few people becoming President, Prime Minister, Chief Minister, Speaker etc from the downtrodden do not mean that the untouchables are uplifted and caste-based slavery is over.'
'Silencing citizens has become a major institutional process under this regime.' 'The anti-Indian argument is a bogey -- meant to silence independent thinking people in India and turn us into goats and sheep.'
'No private citizen can be prevented from holding or propagating in India or abroad, a view contrary to that of the government of the day. The government, it seems is misreading the mandate in the Lok Sabha as being a mandate to crush dissent. In times when ruling parties have brute majorities in Parliament, the true test of safeguarding democracy is its ability to allow dissenting voices to be heard,' says Indira Jaising, the former additional solicitor general.
Religion matters. Aspirational India is still poor. India admires strong leaders. India values decency. Shreekant Sambrani highlights the reasons why the BJP pulled off improbable victories in the Hindi heartland.
Sandeep Pandey salutes women who have contributed to social transformation in India after 1980.
'By calling names and using unparliamentary language, they are trying to divert people's attention from the issues of electricity, water, and income.'
'The 10% increase in women voters was a determined bloc of voters.' 'They were willing to try this third party, specially because it seemed it had done something in Delhi.'
'The honourable prime minister virtually handpicked me for the Amritsar East seat.' 'Amit Shahji announced that if I am elected, the whole of Punjab will be drugs free.'
Reason must triumph over blind faith, says Praful Bidwai in this tribute to murdered rationalist Narendra Dabholkar.
Gowri Ramnarayan explores the world of Kalki Krishnamurthy whose magnificent novel Ponniyin Selvan has inspired Mani Ratnam's latest film PS I.
If we accept that there is a challenge in Punjab today, any realistic progress can only be made if the rest of the country, especially the government and the ruling party, engage with this sense of grievance, points out Shekhar Gupta
He challenged the Congress to select someone 'capable' as its president, who did not belong to 'that one family'.
'The world is silent because your rhetoric is dishonest and rings hollow,' says former RAW officer Tilak Devasher.
'It will be a fine day when we can claim to have institutions in civil society as influential and as popular as ACLU, which is a strong body only because millions of Americans support its values.' 'When Indians take offence at how other Indians are treated, when we take injustice to others personally, we will begin to make India great,' says Aakar Patel.
'Wherever in the world there is political instability, those countries are beset with severe crises today. But India is in a much better position than the rest of the world due to the decisions taken by my government in the national interest,' President Droupadi Murmu said in her address to both Houses of Parliament.
Apart from the two Indians, four others have been selected for the award -- Conchita Carpio-Morales of the Philippines, Dompet Dhuafa of Indonesia, Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers and 'Vientiane Rescue' of Laos
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's silence over caste based census and Bihar's special status is likely to put the BJP in a tight spot ahead of upcoming state assembly polls.
'The condition of some of the Adivasi hamlets is worse than Somalia, worse than what the prime minister described.' 'There are instances when Adivasis have to demolish the hut they live in to bury the dead as they do not have any other place to bury their dear ones.' 'There are tens of thousands of Adivasis who do not have land, a house or even good food to eat.' 'What kind of human development are you talking about?'
'We have finished that fear.'
The BJP president hit out at Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, alleging that the maximum killings of BJP and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh workers have taken place in the latter's home district.
'Why don't they suggest artificial intelligence training for SC/STs?' 'Why can't they be trained in computer programming?'
'We cannot let this country be a place where the poor pay to shit.' 'That is inhuman and unacceptable.'
She began her career as an aspiring model in the late 1990s. A few decades later, she is one of India's best known politicians.
Rahul Gandhi slammed the Modi government, accusing it of being against farmers, labourers, students and the poor.
'The Parivar's ideology and politics was and remains the very opposite of what Dr Ambedkar stood for.'
'Nitish has no future in state politics.' 'Nitish harassed the Yadav community no end in his earlier tenure as chief minister. So who will the Yadav community vote for in the coming state elections?'
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