"India's centuries-old controversy over caste and discrimination brought parts of Delhi to a halt yesterday as thousands of members of an ethnic group demanded that their official status be lowered [from "the second-lowest group, Other Backward Classes (OBC)"] in order to provide them with better access to jobs and education. Members of the Gujjar tribe blocked major roads and highways into Delhi in sit-down protests and set fire to tyres as they vowed to create gridlock across India's capital and the surrounding area...
The Gujjars say they have been discriminated against in terms of jobs, health care and education – particularly in Rajasthan – but say that by being reclassified [in Scheduled Tribes and Casts, (STC)] they will be eligible for government positions and university places that are reserved for that group...
Yesterday's unrest was the latest in several weeks of confrontations between the tribe and the police; 40 people have died in violence across the north and west of India in recent weeks. In a number of villages and towns in Rajasthan, police used live ammunition to suppress demonstrations, killing dozens of people. In one case, a policeman was lynched by protesters.
This time last year, 26 people were killed in similar demonstrations.
In Rajasthan yesterday, protesters blocked roads with the bodies of those demonstrators who were shot dead by police. They said the bodies would not be cremated until the government agreed to their demands...During the 1857 uprising against British colonial rule, Hindu and Muslim Gujjars fought tenaciously against the imperial troops and in support of Bahadur Shah Zafar, the ruler who proved to be the last of the Moghul emperors.
In the aftermath of the uprising, brutally suppressed by the British, the Gujjars and about 150 other ethnic groups were then listed as "criminal tribes".
This listing was officially lifted in 1952 under India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Two years earlier, India's constitution had outlawed discrimination based on caste though the banned practice remains widespread."
NYT: massacre in Mexican town"The entire municipal police force quit after the attack, and officials fled the town for several days, leaving so hastily that they did not release the petty criminals held in the town lockup. The state and federal governments sent in 300 troops and 16 state police officers, restoring an uneasy semblance of order. But townspeople remain terrified...Mexico’s drug violence has by now become so pervasive that it is infecting even small communities like this one, which has fewer than 9,000 residents."
Survival Int'l: report on the estimated 100 'uncontacted' tribes in the world
Gdn: The Guardian provides the cliffs notes version
LAT: Basra is calm - for now
"'There are 47 parties in Basra, and all of them have militias,' said a high-ranking security official with detailed knowledge of the Basra operation. Like many others interviewed for this report, he spoke on condition of anonymity...Before the campaign ["Knights' Onslaught"], Sadr's radical movement had been poised for victory in provincial elections, scheduled for fall, which the United States hopes will go a long way toward ending Iraq's strife.
'We controlled everything in Basra. We were able to apprehend the criminals. The police couldn't believe it,' Mahdi Army spokesman Muhannad Hashimi told The Times. 'We had more authority than the government. We had supporters everywhere and the people loved us.'"
WP: huge mobilization of Shiites to protest possibility of US staying indefinitely in Iraq
Ind: Tutu calls Gaza blockade "abominable" after 3-day visit
"'My message to the international community is that our silence and complicity, especially on the situation in Gaza, shames us all. It is almost like the behaviour of the military junta in Burma.'"
NYT: speaking of the criminals, monks struggle to fill void by junta's lack of response to cyclone Nargis; meanwhile, junta evacuates refugee camps because "they are embarrassing"
Gdn: update on Zimbabwe
BBC: soldiers told they must vote for Mugabe or leave the army
Irish Times (via Slate): making specialists irrelevant
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