Authorities invited leaders of one of India’s lowest castes for talks as the death toll rose to 37 yesterday from three days of bloody demonstrations over caste classification.
Police repeatedly opened fire on violent protests by the Gujjar community on Friday and Saturday in half a dozen villages and towns in the western state of Rajasthan.
The Gujjars are seeking to reclassify their caste to a lower level, which would allow them to qualify for government jobs and university places reserved for such groups. The government has refused.
Twenty-one people were killed in clashes on Saturday, Rohit Kumar Singh, the state information commissioner, said yesterday.
No immediate response came from the Gujjars after the state government’s offer of negotiations, he said.
Police in Sikandra town fired at protesters who torched a police station and two buses on Saturday and shot and wounded a policeman, said Amanjit Singh Gill, Rajasthan’s director-general of police.
Protesters also burned down a police station in the nearby village of Chandra Guddaji, Gill said.
Fifteen demonstrators died on Friday when police fired live ammunition and tear gas to halt rioting, Singh said.
A police officer was also beaten to death, he said.
At least 70 injured people were hospitalized in Jaipur, the state capital, and the town of Dosa.
Demonstrators blocked a major highway linking Jaipur to Agra — site of the world famous Taj Mahal — stranding thousands of people. Thousands of army, police and paramilitary forces patrolled villages to control the violence.
Gujjars took to the streets after a government panel set up to look into their demands recommended a US$70 million aid package for their community, but ruled out caste reclassification.
Gujjars are considered part of the second-lowest group, known as Other Backward Classes, a step up from the Scheduled Tribes and Castes.
The Hindu caste system was outlawed soon after independence from Britain in 1947, but its influence remains powerful and the government awards aid packages to different groups.
Twenty-six people died in Gujjar riots in the same area last year.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home