Historians tell us of the colonial era stories of miserable conditions of workers, even bonded labour, in tea plantations of eastern India. However, the situation improved after independence. In the past few decades the tea industry has made steady profits even in worst years of economic downturn. And that is why reports of starvation deaths in tea plantations of Assam are so shocking. An Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) report says that...

-The Times of India   According to the study conducted by a botany student for her PhD thesis, highly protein deficient diet of Korku and Gond tribes in Central India is one of the reasons of malnutrition in them. Mostly these tribal people eat only locally available plant-based diets which are rich sources of carbohydrates, some minerals and vitamins but no proteins. Study suggests identification and consumption of locally available beans, mushrooms and...

Terming the coming in contact of the Jarawas of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands with tourists and outsiders as hazardous, research scholar of Jawaharlal Nehru University, Pramod Kumar claims that this makes the tribals susceptible to communicable diseases and endangers them further. While Kumar claims that the video in circulation exposing the Jarawa tribals in the Andamans to tourists is relatively new, experts claim that the video proves that this happened...

Research should find ‘frugal' solutions to food, energy problems Expressing concern that the expenditure on research and development in India has been “too low and stagnant,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday called upon industry to increase its contribution and stressed the need for enhanced public-private partnership (PPP) in science and technology. “It is in some way ironic that GE [General Electric] and Motorola have created world-class technology hubs in India, while...

Though Anna Hazare gets much of the credit for focusing the national spotlight on corruption, India was only too aware of the problem even before his agitation. According to a Pew Research poll in October 2010 (six months before Hazare emerged on the national scene), 98 per cent of Indians indicate corrupt political leaders as a “very big” or a “moderately big” problem. Hazare’s campaign did not attune Indians to...