-Business Standard The ILO has invited various central trade unions to come to its office on Thursday to make a position paper incorporating their views The International Labour Organization (ILO) has flayed some of the recent labour reforms proposed by the Narendra Modi government, saying these would take away a chunk of workers from the protection of basic laws. As the trade unions' confrontation with the government is set to escalate, the ILO...

-Economic and Political Weekly A categorical distinction is facing rough weather--that between urban and rural. If we take just agriculture, there is so much of the outside world that comes in not just as external markets but as external inputs. Further, many of our villages barely qualify as rural if we were to take occupation alone. So the earlier line that separated the farmer from the worker in towns is slowly...

-The Indian Express A few days after the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) barred several organisations, including some top educational institutions, from receiving foreign funds, some of them hit back at the Centre on Friday saying the government made a “gross mistake” by including them in the list of NGOs receiving foreign funds. Educational institutions like IIT-Kharagpur, IIT-Delhi, Delhi University, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Panjab University were among those barred by the...

-Economic and Political Weekly This article examines the decline in coverage levels of the Routine Immunisation Programme in the better-governed states across three rounds of the District Level Household and Facility Survey. The analysis points to an urban conundrum where proximity to urban centres is a "risk factor." An understanding of peri-urbanisation processes is essential for improving outcomes and governance in urban health services and the National Urban Health Mission. Purnamita Dasgupta...

-IANS The reverse-osmosis water purifier at home seems to be a benign invention, allowing people to drink clean, healthy water. But now scientists are warning that rampant use of the RO technology could pose a serious threat to public health. One of the most popular water purifying technologies in India, the RO process is efficient in terms of filtering out toxic substances like arsenic and fluoride, especially in areas where groundwater is...