-Hindustan Times Kolkata/ Darjeeling/ Guwahati: More than five lakh workers in West Bengal’s biggest labour-intensive industries of tea and jute have not got wages since Wednesday when the union government withdrew two high-denomination currency notes. A similar predicament exists in neighbouring Assam and the rest of the Northeast, which has tea estates in remote areas where currency notes will take days to arrive. In Bengal, owners of several tea gardens and jute mills...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Farm Policy: The window for agricultural reform is closing fast -Pravesh Sharma
-The Indian Express It’s not as if the Centre cannot initiate reforms in agriculture. In fact, in at least three major areas, the onus for leadership and action lies with the Centre. For over a year, there have been news reports of Niti Aayog, the erstwhile Planning Commission’s new avatar, working on a wide-ranging reform package for India’s farm sector. In recent months, teasers have appeared hinting at the Centre’s plans of...
More »'Two-thirds of prisoners in India are undertrials' -Samarth Bansal
-The Hindu The ‘Prison Statistics India 2015’ report was released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) on Monday. Here are five things the data tells us about the state of Indian prisons. The problem of overcrowding The report calls overcrowding as “one of the biggest problems faced by prison inmates.” It results in poor hygiene and lack of sleep among other problems. “Keeping in view the human rights of the prisoners, it...
More »From plate to plough: A clear trend towards non-vegetarianism in India -Ashok Gulati & Smriti Verma
-The Indian Express But per capita meat consumption remains relatively low. This has implications for nutritional and food security. In the eyes of the world, India is seen as a vegetarian country. Presumably, this impression has been created by our best brand ambassadors from political, spiritual and yoga circles. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a strict vegetarian. The popular yoga guru, Baba Ramdev, and many other Hindu religious leaders too, are vegetarians...
More »Dams close to glacial lakes in Himalayas under flood threat
-IANS Hydropower projects, on Himalayan water resources, can face hazards of glacial lake outbursts that can damage its infrastructure Of the 177 hydropower projects (HPP) located close to Himalayan glaciers over a fifth - including many in India - could be under threat from floods caused by the outbursts of glacial lakes, European researchers have warned. The researchers, from various universities, have charted out a new method for locating the minimum exposure that...
More »