ZAVOORA, India (AlertNet) – Amid thousands of tree stumps stretching over almost 60 hectares (150 acres) of bare plateau, there are signs of life. Delicate saplings of kail and deodar conifers are growing between other newly planted deciduous trees.  The woodland had been cut down illegally by loggers and encroached upon for farming. But forestry officials here in Shopian district, a two-hour drive south of Srinagar, the summer capital of India’s...

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...

Assam tea has failed to capture the market in the very country whose planters made it a marketable commodity in the state 150 years ago. The situation, however, can be turned around with a better marketing strategy, Mark Kibblewhite, an eminent tea scientist and a professor at Cranfield University in the UK, told The Telegraph on the sidelines of World Tea Science Congress which began at Tocklai Experimental Station at Cinnamara,...

When Munni arrived in this fertile, sugarcane-growing region of north India as a young bride years ago, little did she imagine she would be forced into having sex and bearing children with her husband's two brothers who had failed to find wives. "My husband and his parents said I had to share myself with his brothers," said the woman in her mid-40s, dressed in a yellow sari, sitting in a village...

Union Labour Minister inaugurates UPASI conference Action on representations relating to the Minimum Wages Act can only be taken by State governments, said Union Minister for Labour and Employment Mallikarjun Kharge in Coonoor on Sunday. He was inaugurating the 118th annual conference of the United Planters Association of Southern India (UPASI). Referring to the grievances of the planting community over the wage component adding considerably to the cost of production, he pointed...