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...

-The Hindu   Suggest “necessary preventive” measures to safeguard the interest of workers   Trade union groups on Monday pitched for a worker-oriented Budget for 2012-13 aimed at removing poverty and unemployment and suggested “necessary preventive” measures to safeguard the interests of workers. At their meeting here with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee — the second in the series of the customary pre-Budget consultations — representatives of trade unions (TUs) proposed that wages of contract labour...

-The Economic and Political Weekly   Media freedom is not restricted by one law but by collusion between economic and political power and big media. The defamation case filed in a Pune court by former Press Council chairman justice P B Sawant has drawn attention to the criminal law of defamation and whether it restricts the freedom of the press. Justice Sawant was awarded Rs 100 crore in exemplary damages in the case...

The Editors Guild of India has expressed its concern at the implications of Monday's ruling of the Supreme Court, rejecting a Special Leave Petition seeking a stay against a high court order asking the Times Now channel to deposit Rs 100 crore as a pre-condition for hearing its appeal. "While recognising that the law of defamation is an important qualification of the fundamental right to freedom of expression, the Guild believes...

Denial of labour entitlements to contract workers is at the root of urban squalor The human development report does not say anything new. It only sums up the outcome of policies being followed in this country. It does not, for instance, highlight the seeds that have manifested themselves in hunger and poverty. One of the seeds is the helpless labour enforcement machinery, which is unable to deal with the mammoth reality...