Mamata Banerjee today appealed to the tribals in the Dooars and the Terai to take their case to the committee formed by the state government to look into the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha demand of bringing the Gorkha-dominated areas of the plains under the hill set-up. The tribals are opposed to the Morcha demand and have threatened protests and demonstrations if the state government accepts it. “A committee chaired by Justice (Retd) Shyamal...

-The Business Standard   Young women in India are much better off than their mothers, but they fare much worse than their counterparts in many developing countries when it comes to the physical survival rate of women and participation in labour force, says a report by the World Bank. The World Development Report titled ‘Gender Equality and Development’ looks at gender inequality as not just a moral but also an economic issue. The report...

India has markedly improved the access of girls to education, besides bringing down fertility and infant mortality rates, but the World Development Report 2012 on ‘Gender and Development’ issued warnings on other fronts—women’s labour participation rates remain stagnant and domestic violence is alarmingly high. The report, launched on Thursday at the World Bank, also highlighted high rates of domestic abuse and their relationship to reproductive health apart from high maternal mortality...

With tribals accounting for about 14 per cent of the total population in the state, the Congress party is organising a one-day conclave at Kevadia Colony in the tribal-dominated Narmada district on October 15 to discuss the issues of interest to them. Aimed at wooing the tribal heartland for 2012 assembly elections, the party has decided to focus mainly on the issue of allotment of forest land. The issue of forest...

When activists of the Right to Food campaign attacked Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia over the Rs 32 per capita per day cut-off for poverty line, Vijay Jawandhia — a farm activist from Vidarbha — asked a counter question: “Why are you happy with a minimum wage of Rs 100 per labourer per day under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), when salaries have been revised several...