The village bureaucrat shifted from foot to foot, hands clasped behind his back, beads of sweat forming on his balding head. The eyes of hundreds of wiry village laborers, clad in dusty lungis, were fixed upon him. A group of auditors, themselves villagers, read their findings. A signature had been forged for the delivery of soil to rehabilitate farmland. The soil had never arrived, and about $4,000 was missing. The...

A team of officials, led by Assistant Commissioner Prabhuling Kavalikatti, raided a black stone quarry in Vitla in Bantwal taluk and rescued 39 bonded labourers, including some children, on Wednesday. While some of them are from Krishnagiri district in Tamil Nadu, others belong to Kanakapura near Bangalore. They were given meagre wages and were not allowed to leave the quarry for six years, according to Mr. Kavalikatti. He described it as...

In the largest act of philanthropy by an Indian, Wipro chairman Azim Premji will give about Rs 8,846 crore ($2 billion) to improve school education in India. Other donations to charitable institutions by any person or corporation in India pale in comparison to this massive endowment. It effectively silences critics who say Indian billionaires are measly donors compared to foreign counterparts, and that they focus on big-name western universities rather...

I have not received any official communication: Kerala Minister The proposed field trial comes at a time when natural rubber production has virtually stagnated In the face of opposition from the Kerala government to all genetically modified (GM) crops, the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) is learnt to have approved a proposal from the Rubber Board for conducting field trials of GM rubber. The GEAC has been constituted by the Union Ministry...

‘Several interventions for high risk groups have been taken up in Bagalkot' There is an urgent need to involve elected representatives, especially women at the gram panchayat and taluk panchayat levels to conduct awareness programmes on HIV/AIDS, according to Ravi Kittur, a social worker and councillor at the ART Centre in Bijapur district hospital. Mr. Kittur attributes high prevalence of HIV/AIDS in a large number of people in Bijapur and Bagalkot districts...