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Born into an upper-caste family in Kerala, P.S. Krishnan worked for upliftment of the Dalitbahujans during his time in the IAS. He proved that even a civil servant could play a significant role in the formulation and implementation of government policies for the wellbeing of the deprived. He passed away in Delhi on 10 November 2019

An extensively researched timeline of Dr Ambedkar’s life is not yet available. Here, Lokesh Kumar tries to fill this void in the literature on the man who studied inequality in Indian society to the minutest detail and fought to remove it

In 2006, Hindu upper-caste men dominated the media. They were about 8% of India’s population but among the key decision-makers of the national media their share was as high as 71%

‘Yes, we declare that the books, from the Vedas, to the Smritis, the Puranas, which propagate the caste system are false and against humanity. Yes, we are for equality; we declare that all humans, all castes are equal’ – will Brahmins collectively say this? Asks Nagesh Chaudhary

Despite constituting more than half of India’s population, OBCs have been more or less absent from the top echelons of the Indian National Congress. The party needs to realize soon that it cannot claim to be inclusive without making OBCs real stakeholders

Abdullah Nasir writes that many among this largest youth population in the world will want to transcend the human-created barriers of caste and religion if and when they choose to marry. He says the rest of us shouldn’t get in the way, for they are probably our only glimmer of hope in preserving the idea of India

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It was brahman sociologist G.S. Ghurye’s regressive perspective on caste, politics and colonialism that guided Bernard Cohn and Nicholas Dirks to develop the thesis that the colonial census and information-gathering effectively created the categories of religion and caste, as we know them today. Now, US-based geographer Sanjay Chakravorty has picked up on it and appears to be on a re-popularizing mission

Official figures show that almost 25 per cent of the OBC students drop out of these premier institutions