Historians tell us of the colonial era stories of miserable conditions of workers, even bonded labour, in tea plantations of eastern India. However, the situation improved after independence. In the past few decades the tea industry has made steady profits even in worst years of economic downturn. And that is why reports of starvation deaths in tea plantations of Assam are so shocking. An Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) report says that...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Farm technologies not reaching farmers: PM by Gargi Parsai
Farm technologies are not reaching farmers on the ground, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh observed here on Monday and said “it represents the failure of the system.” He was speaking at the Golden Jubilee convocation of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) here. The annual farm growth rate was expected to be 3.5 per cent in the 12th Plan period ending this year, he said, but there was concern over the gap between...
More »Water crisis looms over India by Chetan Chauhan
Major metros like Delhi and Mumbai face huge Water and environmental crises as infrastructure tries to keep pace with the increasing population, says a new study of 71 Indian cities. The report, Excreta Matter, prepared by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), comes at a time when India is urbanising at the highest rate in the world and half of all Indians are expected to be living in cities by...
More »Jairam wants social barrier in sanitation broken
-The Hindu “If Shyam Benegal [film director] can come up with a toilet version of Manthan[movie that focused on milk cooperatives] we can break a certain social barrier” towards solving a problematic issue like sanitation, felt Jairam Ramesh, Union Minister of Rural Development. Launching the Asia-Pacific Millennium Development Goals report of the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific, Mr. Ramesh recalled howManthan that featured Smita Patil had changed women's...
More »Women demanding mobile phones but not toilets: Jairam Ramesh
-IANS Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh on Friday expressed concern that the government's Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) is being seen as a "token sanitation campaign" and rued that women were demanding mobile phones but not toilets. "Women demand mobile phones, they are not demanding toilets... Sanitation is the much more difficult issue," Ramesh said at the launch of Asia-Pacific Regional MDGs (Millenium Development Goals) Report 2011-12. Ramesh said women's self-help groups (SHGs) should...
More »