Human rights commission calls for collective efforts to provide healthcare, compensation to victims and kin The National Human Rights Commission has slammed the Centre and state governments for neglecting workers who are suffering from silicosis—an incurable lung disease caused due to inhalation of silica in dust. The reprimand is in the form of a note that followed the commission's fourth review meeting in New Delhi that concluded on May 4. Over...

-The Hindu Environment Ministry rejected forest clearance to Kalu dam in Thane district While irregularities were surfacing in irrigation projects around Mumbai in early April, the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) rejected forest clearance to the Kalu dam in Murbad taluka of Thane district, which would have submerged around 1,000 hectares of forest land. Work started last October without permission from the MOEF, and Indavi Tulpule...

The exploitation of migrant Construction Workers has grown alongside the expansion of the industry. It's time the government got serious about upholding the law. A recent report in The Hindu on the violation of labour laws at a massive construction site belonging to the Army Welfare Housing Organisation in Bangalore raises yet again the repeated neglect of regulations relating to the employment and welfare of workers by construction companies in India. For...

Action plan proposed to improve rural connectivity for fighting extremism Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh on Monday said development and security were integral to each other, like strands in a single fabric. He was speaking in the context of the proposed Sarju Area Development Action Plan (SADAP), which is similar to the Saranda Action Plan (SAP) that was started six months ago in the Chibasa district of Jharkhand to combat the extremist...

-The Hindu If only laws could eliminate all that they prohibit, India would have been free of the scourge of manual scavenging decades ago. The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Bill, which is to be introduced in the monsoon session of Parliament, is another attempt to prevent employment of people in the cleaning, handling or carrying of human excreta. Despite the renewed stress on rehabilitation in the...