Institute special task force to investigate rising Dalit atrocities: Uttarakhand CM told

By A Representative
Several senior activists under the banner of the National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM) in an open letter to Trivendra Rawat, chief minister, Uttarakhand, and Vijay Bardhwal, president, State Women's Commission, have regretted that incidents of rape of Dalits girls is constantly on the rise in the state.
Referring to the May 30 incident, in which 24-year-old Vipin Panwar raped a mine-year-old minor Dalit girl his village in Nainbagh Tehsil, Jaunpur, Tehri Garhwal, the letter said, efforts by the family to get justice failed, but things came to light only after the girl's mother reached Dehradun with her unconscious daughter for treatment.
Pointing out that the accused is absconding, NAPM said, four years ago, a young woman of the Dalit family was gangraped by young men of the village. She was later murdered. The matter was suppressed under the pretext that it would bring bad name to the village.
NAPM said, the incident took place in the village where a Dalit, Jitendra Das, was murdered because he dared sit on chair to take his meal. While the incident took place last month, so far no steps have been taken against the culprits.
Pointing out that these incidents suggest police inaction, NAPM has demanded formation of a special task force on Dalit atrocities in the region, arrest of the accused and registration of case under the anti-atrocities and sexual harassment laws, time-bound legal proceedings, and adequate compensation to the victims.
Those who have signed the letter include Medha Patkar, Aruna Roy, Nikhil Dey, Dr Binayak Sen, Prafulla Samantara, Lingraj Azad, and others.

Xi Jinping’s visit to USA: Recognition that China can't be contained?

By Vijay Prashad President Xi Jinping’s forthcoming visit to the United States must be understood as more than an encounter between two heads of state, but it must be seen as an encounter between two possible futures. In one future, the United States imposes a spiral of confrontation against China. Trade disputes harden into economic warfare, then economic warfare intensifies into technological blockades, technological blockades produce military encirclement, and finally military encirclement creates incidents, and incidents the danger of becoming an unimaginable war.

Swaminarayan, untouchability and the 'we are not Hindu' argument

By Rajiv Shah Following my blog on why the Eiffel Tower authorities should take all the blame for giving in to the Swaminarayan sadhus ’ bizarre demand to “invisibilise” women, including its female staff, during their visit to the internationally renowned Paris tourist centre on September 5, an interesting comment by one of the top academics drew my attention to something I vaguely knew about one of India’s most powerful and richest religious sects.

From margins to microphones: The rise of Dalit hip-hop in India

By Tersina Maria Toppo* A protest does not always arrive as a slogan shouted from a street corner. Sometimes, it arrives on a beat. A microphone replaces the megaphone, a music video becomes a public square, and the smartphone becomes the space where a history once pushed to the margins is narrated, debated, and shared.

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