The alleged incident of two quarry workers in Tamil Nadu's Villupuram district being forced to swallow faeces draws attention to larger issues. NORMALLY the villages and hamlets in and around Thiruvakkarai in Tamil Nadu's Villupuram district are woken up by the loud noise and vibrations caused by the blasting of rocks and the pounding of boulders with sledge hammers, apart from the rattling sound of tipper lorries transporting stones from 40-odd...

Food price inflation, and inflation in general, has become less of an issue. But it isn’t an issue that will go away. Give it till June and inflation is likely to inch up again. Competition is a good antidote against price increases. It ensures efficiency and reduces price volatility. Logically, food price inflation should trigger and stimulate agricultural reform, so there is competition and supply-side changes can occur. But in...

The government is considering to make changes in existing laws to abolish all forms of child labour under 18 years.  A government panel has recommended amendment to Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act that makes distinction between hazardous and non-hazardous categories of work for children under 14 years.  Child rights activists has been demanding for a revision in the definition of child labour to bring uniformity in all laws, and recognize all...

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...

Within days of Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) recommending that the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act be amended in sync with the Right to Education (RTE) Act - promising free and compulsory education for children aged between 6 and 14 years - the labour ministry will hold a meeting with HRD officials on Wednesday. This is the first concrete action on NAC's recommendation. NAC's proposal, being supported by the...