Set to include them in BPL segment In a step which can have a major bearing on Dalit politics in the country and challenge Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati’s undisputed hold over her caste people, the Centre is likely to carve out a special Mahadalit category and include them in the Below Poverty Line (BPL) segment. The proposal is expected to come up for discussion before the Union Cabinet on...
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Outsider in own home, Maharashtra village wrests control of forest produce sale by Jaideep Hardikar
If the problems are macro, think micro. That seems to have been the guiding principle for Lekha-Mendha, the Maharashtra village that last month became the first in India to win the right to grow, harvest and sell bamboo. Such rights are the key goal of a five-year-old central law which aims to give tribal communities control over some resources of the jungles they live in. “There is no point in looking out...
More »Bonded British labourers get freedom, land title after 70 years by Ashish Tripathi
Octogenarian Sita Devi was in tears when district magistrate of Gonda, Ram Bahadur, handed her the land ownership title. She was five-year-old when her family was forced into Bonded labour by British forest officers posted in Gorakhpur. The family was given a piece of land for planting trees and to grow crop for its survival. They family was shifted to other place after five years for the same job. From...
More »CIC directive to Revenue Department Commissioner by Devesh K Pandey
To give information to an RTI activist on pending trial cases under labour Act The Central Information Commission has directed the Divisional Commissioner of the Revenue Department to furnish information to an RTI activist regarding prosecutions, if any, conducted for violation of the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, for which she had filed an application almost a year ago. Priyanka Sinha, a representative of non-government organisation Pratidhi, had moved an application in...
More »Crossing borders below the radar, and making it back by Malia Politzer
Gary Singh’s abduction ordeal illustrates the dangers faced by those who rely on smugglers to make their way overseas One day in 2006, 18-year-old Gubachan “Gary” Singh, an illegal immigrant in Manila, Philippines, was on his way to work when he was approached by four stocky Filipinos. One pulled out a gun, pressing the barrel into the small of his back, while another blindfolded him and shoved him into a van....
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