Over 11 elders including women and a couple of children hailing from Orissa's Koratpur District managed to save themselves from the clutches of serfdom in an obscure village of Karnataka. Buzz up!They reached Orissa on Wednesday, where a voluntary forum apprised the District Labour Officer and facilitated their return to their native village. The role of middlemen luring poor landless labourers came to light due to the efforts of Pragati, the non-governmental...

A UN expert body on Thursday said surge in food prices in India is a matter of concern, but retail price inflation will cool down to 7.5% this year from around 12% last year. The UN Economic Social Commission for Asia and Pacific (Escap) also projected the economy to grow by 8.3% in 2010-11, compared to estimated 7.2% last fiscal, fueled by the recovery in investment and private consumption. “In India, consumer...

Domestic helps, the faceless engine without which daily life will grind to a halt in India, are finally set to get the right to a weekly off and other benefits most citizens take for granted. The Centre is coming up with a policy that stipulates the compulsory weekly off for domestic helps and a few more benefits. Some homes do already extend a few of these benefits but countless others do...

A good monsoon forecast strengthens prospects for India to cut sugar imports, free up grain exports and buy more gold as rains boost supplies in the world’s leading consumer of most farm commodities. Annual monsoon rains from June to September are key to firing up growth and farm output and limiting inflation in India, which ranks among the world’s top producers and consumers of sugar, wheat, rice and edible oils and...

Around two decades ago, Lawrence Summers, then World Bank chief economist, outraged many when he argued in an internal memo that the economic logic behind dumping toxic waste in low-wage countries was “impeccable”. His rationale: less developed countries are “under-polluted” and that “foregone earnings from increased morbidity and mortality” would be lesser in countries with lower wages. Cut to now and the thing to ask is: does India too believe...