Envying the lower castes

Suddenly everyone wants to be low-caste, said Badri Narayan. It used to be considered an extreme disadvantage to be in one of India’s oppressed castes or indigenous tribes. But decades of affirmative action and quota systems have changed all that. Now, many lower-middle castes are agitating to be reclassified as “more backward,” in effect “struggling to move down the ladder […]

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Hunters for the Hungry (Budget Cuts Affecting Food Pantries)

Hunters for the Hungry - production of ground venison

Hunters for the Hungry Fred has been working with an agency called Hunters for the Hungry for five years. During that time, his food bank has received thousands of pounds of venison to feed the poor. This year, however, when Fred received no call from the agency saying it was ready to deliver the meat, he called the organization himself.    The answering machine […]

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Cat runs for senate – comes in 3rd place

■    A cat that ran for the U.S. Senate in Virginia received about 7,000 write-in votes in last week’s election, according to his owners. That means Hank, who hails from Springfield, Va., can claim third place behind Democratic victor Tim Kaine and Republican also-ran George Allen.The human candidates were separated by 180,000 votes, which means that Hank did not affect […]

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The sad state of warehoused children

Russian orphanages are a scandal, said Jennifer Rankin. State institutions house nearly 400,000 children, a population larger than many cities. But less than one third of these children are actually orphans. Many “fall into the system when their parents, often fighting a losing battle with alcohol or drugs,” lose their parental rights. Even more of them—nearly half the total—have disabilities, […]

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