Just as the Union Cabinet approved a Bill seeking to protect women from sexual harassment at workplaces, a survey by a non-government organisation has claimed that nearly 88 per cent of the female workforce in Indian Information Technology and business process outsourcing and knowledge process outsourcing (BPO/KPO) companies reported having suffered some form of workplace sexual harassment during the course of their work. Close to 50 per cent women had been...

The poster boy of microfinance is now seeking some anonymity. In Andhra Pradesh, the epicentre of the worst crisis faced by microfinance in India, SKS Microfinance is playing down its identity and going into preservation mode. At its modest office in a residential colony in Warangal district, India’s largest microfinance company has taken down its board. At its head office in upmarket Begumpet in Hyderabad, it hung a cloth mesh...

Ashok Chavan may have been forced to quit within weeks of his name being linked to the alleged shady dealings involving the Adarsh Housing Society but the CBI has been probing the members of the group for almost six months now, suspecting some of them to be proxy owners.The investigation was launched into the source of income of the defence officers and Central employees who own apartments in their name...

Can we afford to leave MG-NREGA alone? Why is the civil society crying foul? Are the rural activists demanding too much? Is the UPA-II trying to take back what UPA-I gave before the elections? Let us face it, the MG-NREGA is in a big crisis. NAC members like Aruna Roy and Jean Dreze have alleged (See links below) that the present remuneration of rural workers is declining by the day and it...

Assam's fragile peace was shattered on Monday when tribal separatists killed at least 18 Hindi-speaking people, including eight bus passengers, in three separate attacks in the northeastern state of Assam, officials said. Eight people were also injured in the attacks. A police spokesperson said heavily armed militants of the outlawed National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) fired at a bus near Bhoimari village in Sonitpur district, about 250 km north of Assam's...