Union Budget 2024-25: SC, ST, and OBC welfare not a priority
A major concern is the underutilization of the budgets allocated to the relevant ministries and departments. Year after year, the actual expenditures have been lower than the budget estimates. This indicates not just the lack of effective implementation but also an indifference towards marginalized communities, writes Nesar Ahmad
Union Budget 2024-25: SC, ST, and OBC welfare not a priority
A major concern is the underutilization of the budgets allocated to the relevant ministries and departments. Year after year, the actual expenditures have been...
Maratha reservation stir has been anti-Phule-Ambedkarite from its birth
A very tragic incident took place in the year 2016. A Maratha girl was raped and murdered in Kopardi village of Ahmednagar district. The...
Hathras stampede: Caste and politics of a tragedy
Surajpal Singh alias Narayan Sakar Hari alias Bhole Baba is a Jatav by caste. Most of his devotees are either Jatavs or come from...
NEET designed to churn out doctors only from the upper class and castes and city dwellers
This year, 73 per cent of the successful candidates came from CBSE/NCERT curriculum while only 27 per cent were from schools with state board...
With the Constitution secured, there is much to thank V.P. Singh for
The Mandal reservation, which V.P. Singh ushered in, became the main protector of the Indian Constitution in the face of a threat from the...
Gramsci and Ambedkar’s insights into resisting fascism in the long term
Dr B.R. Ambedkar fits Gramsci’s definition of an organic intellectual. He challenged brahmanical hegemony systematically and structurally and urged the subaltern to be educated...
Battle for ‘masawat’ in the age of majoritarianism
Considering the plight of Muslims in India in his new book, Mujibur Rehman identifies with Ambedkar’s pain when he said, “Gandhiji, I have no...
‘Laapataa Ladies’: A meaningful engagement with the aspirations of rural Indian women
The film serves as a springboard for further exploration, inviting viewers to delve deeper into the complexities of gender relations and advocate for a...
‘Amar Singh Chamkila’ ain’t the whole story
The fear of making the audience uncomfortable could be the reason the filmmaker has avoided engaging with the larger social and political question of...
‘Amar Singh Chamkila’ review: Caste is the elephant in the room
Despite Chamkila’s commentary on caste and class inequalities, director Imtiaz Ali appears to have opted to focus primarily on the familial dynamics and the...
‘Sahitya Akademi has brought itself honour by honouring Sanjeev’
In his more than a dozen novels, Sanjeev has depicted the reality of the post-Independence Indian society. The issues and topics that he has...
In his ‘Ambedkar: A Life’, Shashi Tharoor betrays his privileged-caste naivete
After coming out with ‘Why I Am A Hindu’, Tharoor has predictably set out to look for Ambedkar’s ‘flaws’ in his biography of Ambedkar,...
Phanishwar Nath Renu – who gave centrality to the toilers of ‘the provinces’
Renu took the genre of reportage to new heights in Hindi literature. No one has been able to match him to date. In his...
Rajesh Paswan: Criticism within Dalit Literature is still in its infancy
Our Dalit writers don’t take criticism well. They begin enquiring about the caste and ideology of the critic. They evaluate criticism on these parameters,...
Memoir: When Rajendra Yadav visited Gorakhpur
Both Rajendra Yadav and Namvar Singh participated in a seminar on Premchand in Gorakhpur University. At the seminar, Namvar Singh declared that fiction was...
Ambedkar the democrat shone in the making of the Indian Constitution
Unlimited powers were not vested in the Indian president. Instead, it was Parliament which was vested with all the powers. That was meant to...
Jagdeo Prasad wanted to forge a national confederation representing the exploited classes
‘DMK has been formed in Madras, Shoshit Dal in Bihar and Rashtriya Shoshit Sangh in Uttar Pradesh to secure freedom from the upper-caste imperialists....
Karpoori Thakur: When the chief minister offered to give a feudal lord a shave
Bharat Ratna Karpoori Thakur was known for his simplicity. He is remembered for granting reservations to the backward classes in Bihar. But do you...
Periyar insisted on proportional representation a century ago
The same Congress Party which Periyar quit about a century ago after it refused to consider proportional representation is now toeing the Periyar line...
Why Jagdeo Prasad insisted on a Savarna-free party
The Shoshit Dal came into being as a ‘nichhakka’ party of the exploited. Given the political scenario prevailing then Jagdeo Prasad underlined the need...