-The Week Manorama Online Broken hearts float down the Bhakra Main Line canal. Broken by the endless struggle with the land, with the weather, with the creditor. Broken by broken promises, broken by the honour they lost, broken enough to kill themselves. And, at the sluice gate at Khanauri village they slow down, looking up with unseeing eyes. And, from the bridge across the canal, the beating hearts they broke look...

-Down to Earth The fracas over India's refusal to meet the deadline on trade facilitation exposes rich nations' double standards NOTHING HAS exposed the double standards at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) than the current uproar over the implementation of two agreements at the global trade policing organisation. One, termed Public Stockholding for Food Security Purposes, protects the food security concerns of millions of the poor and the livelihood of millions of...

-PTI Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan has dismissed the notion that the rural employment guarantee programme is behind the massive spurt in wages in rural areas. "On the NREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Act), there is clearly a lot of sense that this has increased rural wages tremendously. I would argue that clean, trustworthy studies say that the effect was may be 10 per cent," Rajan told an audience here last week. It...

-Ecnomic and Political Weekly Despite recent improvements in the maternal health scenario in rural Assam, it remains the state with the highest number of maternal deaths in the country. Institutional delivery, antenatal care, and postnatal care have been actively promoted by the state to deal with the situation. However, state policies are still incongruously geared towards addressing the issue without taking sufficient note of the various sociocultural impediments in the way...

-Economic and Political Weekly How will the amendments to the Factories Act affect women workers? How do women view the "protections" and night work? Apoorva Kaiwar (akaiwar@yahoo.co.in) is a labour lawyer and consultant on issues of gender and labour. The central government is proposing to amend several labour laws. The process of amending them has been underway since 2011, which means that it is not only the new dispensation that is eager to...