-Hindustan Times Bhopal: In a 1957 Bollywood classic Naya Daur, man battles machine and prevails. But in the canal irrigated areas of Madhya Pradesh, manual Labourers are losing to a combine harvester, a rapid harvesting machine. Combine harvesters that first made their appearance in the 1960s turned out to be more economical and efficient ways of harvesting crops and then on they began to challenge the manual labour. Now the situation has come...

-Hindustan Times The government plans to relax child labour laws and allow children below the age of 14 to work in select family enterprises if it doesn't hamper their education, saying it wants to encourage learning at home as it leads to entrepreneurship. A draft provision in the Child Labour Prohibition Act says the prohibition on child labour will not apply if they are helping the family in fields, forests and home-based...

-IANS RAIPUR: There's a deathly silence in many villages across Chhattisgarh these days. The houses are locked as entire families have left for greener pastures for want of work, despite Central government's rural job scheme and availability of rice at Rs1 per kg. "We (55 Labourers and 15 children) are leaving for Faizabad (in Uttar Pradesh) where we will make bricks. The payment is Rs 400 for 1,000 bricks. Two Labourers...

-Hindustan Times Jhabua/Alirajpur: The poor tribal farmers ploughing the rocky surface of steep hillocks at a height of more than 700 feet in western Madhya Pradesh belie the state government's claims about making agriculture a profitable profession. Overcoming problems posed by the undulating terrain, rocks located barely six inches below the surface and the lack of irrigation facilities, the tribes people eke out a livelihood by growing maize, millet, urad, tuar and...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The yearly wage revision for the rural job guarantee scheme has for the first time missed its April 1 deadline, with the government having sat for nine months on expert advice for a sizeable hike. Sources said the rural development ministry would next week notify an interim wage increase, based on the existing formula for yearly revisions, while the finance ministry weighs the expert panel's July recommendations. There are...