Legal experts have called for repealing of anti-beggary laws and demanded effective implementation of welfare and social security laws for enhancing sources of livelihood for the beggars. Usha Ramanathan, law researcher, Poverty and Rights, New Delhi, and B.B. Pande, former professor of Law, University of Delhi, said prevention and prohibition of beggary laws enacted in several States have infringed upon individual liberties and have provided powers to State authorities to round...

FOLLOWING a Frontline Cover Story (“Driven to despair”, October 8) that highlighted the factors contributing to the high incidence of suicide among migrant workers and their family members in Tirupur in Tamil Nadu, the Central government set up a team to look into the issue. The team's visit to the knitwear capital of India on November 30 has raised the hopes of workers, trade union functionaries and labour rights activists.Headed...

A day labourer has complained to court that a panchayat pradhan in cahoots with a bank manager has thrust a loan of Rs 30,000 on him for which he had never applied, the allegation exposing how beneficiaries of village schemes are left at the mercy of influential rural leaders.Additional chief judicial magistrate Manoj Rai, after criticising the police role in the investigation, asked the Islampur subdivisional officer yesterday to inquire...

No proposal to revise Minimum Support Price Despite demands from Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, there is no proposal with the Centre to revise the Minimum Support Price (MSP) or announce any bonus for wheat, paddy and sugarcane crops. However, it is working towards a system of ensuring remunerative prices under which farmers do not require any concessions in future, according to Union Food and Agriculture Minister Sharad...

Dr MS Swaminathan, NAC member and the father of India's green revolution talks to Rupashree Nanda on the food security legislation, the neglect in creating storage infrastructure and ideas like outsourcing food security issues. Rupashree Nanda: The main reason for the NAC climb down from the promised universal PDS to targeted PDS was the stated non - availability of foodgrains. Would you agree to that argument? Isn't there is not enough...