Some 10 lakh to 30 lakh migrant labourers take up skilled or semi-skilled work in Kerala. THE State Bank of India has a branch near the Raj Bhavan in Thiruvananthapuram, in a by-lane on the avenue leading to the Kowdiar Palace, the residence of the former maharajas of Travancore. It is a cosy little place on the first floor of a nondescript building, and the clientele includes the rich and...

Proposed asbestos project could lead to a ‘Turner & Newall' epidemic There is a spectre over the verdant fields of Bihar's Muzaffarpur district, hitherto suppressed by the clamour and euphoria of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's massive electoral mandate. Its cause is asbestos — the magic mineral, paradoxically known by its more sinister monikers of the “killer dust” and “the silent time-bomb.” In November last, the Kolkata-headquartered Balmukund Cement & Roofing Ltd. (BCRL) proposed...

The Jharkhand Police has arrested seven persons for reportedly siphoning off Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme funds. The FIR, filed on Tuesday at the Lapung Police Station, accuses assistant post master Binod Jaiswal, SBI’s accountant Anil Kumar Sinha, and five officials of the Block Development Office — programme officer Samir Sagar, Rojgar Sevak Sanjay Oraon, Panchayat Sevak Mansa Kachhap, junior engineer Bindeshwar Singh and assistant engineer Rahul Kumar...

Farmers affiliated to the Trinamool Congress whose agricultural land was acquired for a railway project are threatening a major agitation if their family members are not provided with jobs immediately. Their land was acquired for the proposed 20 km Dankuni-Furfura Sharif track in West Bengal and Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee had promised a job for every family whose land was taken.Agricultural landowners of Furfura Sharif, a major Muslim pilgrimage site...

Mahitosh Sarkar came here from his distant village in West Bengal 12 years ago looking for a better life, and he found it. He abandoned the penniless existence of a subsistence fisherman to become a big-city vegetable seller. His wife found work as a maid. Their four children went to school. Their tiny household, a grim but weather-tight room in a dilapidated tenement, had a color TV and a satellite...