-The Hindu In the wake of references being made to investigate the health issues of mine workers, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) proposes to establish a statutory authority. Cancer, tuberculosis, silicosis, diabetes, musculoskeletal disorders and pulmonary function impairment such as asthma affect mine workers. The proposed authority will coordinate with the Ministries and authorities concerned for taking administrative, legal and medical action. The ICMR has approached the State governments for developing a...

-The Times of India Fearing reprisals over the violence against Muslims in Assam, people from the northeast continued to flee from cities such as Bangalore, Chennai, Pune and Mumbai, even as ethnic clashes between Bodos and Muslims that began in July spread to Baksa, Nalbari and Kamrup districts on Thursday.  More than 3,000 Labourers from the northeast living in Chennai thronged the station to take the weekly Egmore-Dibrugarh Express after they heard...

-Tehelka Are we eating sugar which small kids are producing as bonded labour? FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD Mahendra Singh used to live with his parents and two siblings in the Jahangirpuri slum area of New Delhi until the morning he was abducted, trafficked and then callously ‘sold’ to a sugarcane farmer of Haryana’s Karnal district. Mahendra was made to work as a bonded labourer in the sugarcane fields for three-and-a-half long years, until he finally...

-The Hindu Unemployment dole, introduced in Kerala in 1982, the first State to do so, could soon be a thing of past if Labour Minister Shibu Baby John has his way. “We need to rethink on the unemployment dole as it does not serve any purpose now,” Mr. John toldThe Hindu . The government spends Rs.50 crore a year on the unemployment assistance scheme and there are roughly 3.5 lakh people getting...

-The Hindu Public Interest Litigation is a good thing when it is used to enforce the rights of the disadvantaged. But it has now been diluted to interfere with the power of the government to take decisions on a range of policy matters Judicial activism is not an easy concept to define. It means different things to different persons. Critics denounce judicial decisions as activist when they do not agree with them....