Many governments in the developing world lack the will to eradicate child labour, says the third ILO global report on the deplorable practice. The effects of the present global economic and financial crisis, rather than its causes, have been the central preoccupation of organisations such as the International Labour Organisation in recent times. The ILO, in particular, has focussed on the impact of the crisis on populations within the least...

Work on a new base year will start the moment the government starts releasing key economic data such as the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) and the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) with 2004-05 as the reference point within a few months. The National Statistical Commission (NSC), under C. Rangarajan, has recommended that the base year be updated every five years. Officials in the ministry of statistics and programme implementation (Mospi) say...

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on 29 May announced a Rs25,000 crore ($6 billion) plan for new farm sector projects by states, besides launching a food security mission to enhance output of wheat, rice and pulses. Speaking at the 53rd meeting of the National Development Council, he also warned that small and marginal farming had become an unviable proposition and until farming was made viable at this scale, it would be virtually...

Aruna Roy, the prominent political and social activist who spearheaded the campaign to institute the Right to Information Act in the 1990s, is an ardent critic of the anti-people and exclusionary policies of the first and the second United Progressive Alliance governments. A recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award for community leadership in 2000, she heads the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathana (a trade union of workers and peasants) in Rajasamand, Rajasthan,...

Nearly 4.9 crore rural households were provided employment under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in the last fiscal, says the UPA-II's report card released by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday. The average wage rate per day in the programme has gone up by Rs.25 in the last three years, says the report which outlines steps taken in the past year for rural renewal, a thrust area...