-The Hindu The decision was taken during a tripartite meeting at Kolkata’s New Secretariat Building where representatives of the workers’ union and planters’ association met Labour Minister Moloy Ghatak. Kolkata: The West Bengal government and the Tea Planters’ Association of Darjeeling hills on Friday agreed to the demand of tea garden workers across 87 gardens in the Darjeeling hills for a 20% bonus. The decision was taken during a tripartite meeting at...
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For India Inc's sob story, Sitharaman has a sop story. But will it help? -Aunindyo Chakravarty
-TheWire.in Instead of giving freebies to the affluent, Sitharaman should have announced additional government spending in MNREGA and plans for filling vacancies in government jobs. After holding out for seven weeks, following her maiden budget, Nirmala Sitharaman finally blinked. For about a month now, pink papers and business-friendly pundits had been crying foul about India Inc’s shrinking sales. But, since you can’t sell a sob story about the rich, it was spun to...
More »The price of a good cuppa -Soumitra Ghosh
-The Hindu The lives of tea-estate workers in West Bengal have worsened in many aspects over the years The tea plantation sector continues to play a significant role in the economy of north Bengal. There are 276 organised tea estates spread over the three tea-growing regions of West Bengal: Darjeeling Hills, Terai and Dooars. Besides the formally registered large tea plantations, there are thousands of small growers. According to one estimate, the...
More »The Bitter Plight of Bengal's Tea Garden Workers -Tanmoy Bhaduri
-TheWire.in Tea plantations are touted as the country's second largest employer, but as many of them shut down, workers are being cheated by agents who exploit and traffick them. The once-thriving Tea Gardens in the fertile Dooars region of West Bengal have now fallen on hard times. The tea industry is touted as the country’s second largest employer, but also an industry that undermines labour rights and deprives workers and their...
More »Cashless bliss? Tea belt deflates dream -Avijit Sinha & Anirban Choudhury
-The Telegraph An indication of how far Narendra Modi could be from the dream of making India a predominantly cashless economy is available in a survey done by a tea planters' association in the Dooars, a tribal belt that employs lakhs of Bengal's workforce in tea estates. The survey done by the Dooars Branch of the Indian Tea Association (DBITA) in its 55 member gardens of the 80-plus estates dotting Japaiguri district...
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