They are reinforced by a Hindu caste-system perhaps even more entrenched than that in India, and by the discrimination long suffered by the Madhesi people of the lowland plains neighbouring India.

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While common to the caste-like system of Persia, prostration was something the freedom-loving Greeks scorned.

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Make no mistake: What's in play is the emergence of a caste-based traffic system, one of robot-haves and have-nots, of steely-eyed electronic wheelmen vs.

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The Bombay (Mumbai) meeting is likely to see the anti-globalisation activists focusing on Hinduism's centuries-old social hierarchy, or the caste system, which relegates nearly one-sixth of India's one billion population to the status of low castes known as Dalits, or the oppressed.

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The self-imposed newsroom caste system has run its course.

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Roy's backdrop is the caste system and its myriad mysteries -- plus the unique nature of Kerala, where Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Christians and Communists coexist, not always comfortably.

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While it is easy to characterize this trend as a result of the widening class gap, in a recent discussion, Roth-Douquet characterized it as closer to a caste system.

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