Free Republic

HYDERABAD: Former Chief Justice of India, Justice NV Ramana, expressed concern over the deep-rooted caste system within the Indian community in the United States. He said this while appealing to the Telugu diaspora to continue its campaign for conferring Bharat Ratna on the late minister NT Rama Rao, former chief minister of undivided Andhra Pradesh. Addressing an event at the Pennsylvania Convention Centre in Philadelphia on Sunday, Justice Ramana said: "When caste differences have blurred in India, particularly in the southern part of the country, it's a matter of grave concern that caste system is prevalent among Indians in the...

A raft of evidence shows that caste discrimination has been imported from India to the United States. Indians and Indian Americans are often held up as a “model minority” in the United States. Members of this community are more likely to be highly educated and to have health insurance, make more money, work in more senior positions, and have lower rates of poverty than both the average immigrant and the average American. They are well represented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—the so-called STEM subjects—and more and more of them occupy roles of political and social influence, including Vice President...

LUCKNOW, India -- Police arrested a shopkeeper for axing to death a couple from a lower caste for not promptly paying a meagre debt of 15 rupees (29 cents) for groceries, an official said Friday. District Magistrate Pramod Chandra Gupta said the upper caste shopkeeper killed the couple in a rage Thursday, severing both their heads, when they asked for more time to pay for the groceries they bought from his shop in Mainpuri, a town in Uttar Pradesh state. The Dalit couple were construction workers and left behind five children, Gupta said. "The shopkeeper panicked after killing the couple...

Twelfth-century Hindu temple breaks with tradition after Supreme Court rules against two Brahmin families who have claimed exclusive ancestral rights to choosing priests for centuriesA twelfth-century Hindu temple that attracts hundreds of thousands of pilgrims annually is to admit women and lower-caste men as priests for the first time. The historic break with tradition came about after India's Supreme Court ruled against the two Brahmin families, Badve and Utpat, who had provided the temple's priests for centuries. The court ruled against their claim to exclusive ancestral rights over the earnings and rituals at Vitthal Rukmini temple, in the town of...