Over a year after the Zamrudpur site mishap that killed seven people due to a cantilever pillar collapse, the Delhi Metro has issued a notification debarring Gammon India from participating in any Delhi Metro Rail Corporation contract. Gammon India, the contractor executing the Metro construction project on the affected stretch, has also been slapped with a penalty of Rs 5 crore. Delhi Metro blamed “deficiency” in design and material for the...

It is imperative that the committee constituted to look into charges of corruption in the Commonwealth Games should also include violations of labour laws within its purview. One of the more blatant and visible scams of the recently concluded Commonwealth Games relates to how the thousands of workers who worked on the games construction sites were denied minimum wages, safety equipment, housing and other benefits constitutionally due to them. In an interview...

In reply to an RTI query filed by the People's Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) in August, the labour department of Delhi government has said that it does not have consolidated figures on the labour deaths reported during the Commonwealth Games  preparations. The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) had separately filed an affidavit in the high court in September which said that 109 workers had died on its sites during...

The Commonwealth Games were no showcase, but a mirror of India 2010. If they presented anything, it was this — Indian crony, casino capitalism at its most vigorous. The Commonwealth Games over, we can now return to those of everyday Indian life. For all the protests, though, there was nothing in the corruption that marked the Games that does not permeate every town and city, all the time. Just that, in...

Several thousand day labourers and their families were driven out of Delhi over the past couple of days to try and hide India’s poverty from foreign visitors to the Commonwealth Games, a police officer said today. Most were taken to railway stations and put on trains under the Delhi government’s orders, said the officer who oversaw part of the operation. Those who couldn’t afford tickets had their arms branded with an...