Trade unions and labour rights activists blame the high suicide rate in Tirupur, Tamil Nadu, on the practices of the garment industry. TIRUPUR has carved out a niche for itself in the world of garments. Its phenomenal growth in the highly competitive global scenario, particularly in the past two decades, has been made possible by the entrepreneurial spirit of its manufacturers and exporters and the sweat and labour of thousands of...

In the last few years in different parts of India the issue of land acquisition has become politically explosive.  This isn’t surprising as land, one of the few assets possessed by large numbers of people, particularly in rural India, is rising disproportionately in potential value as commercial and industrial development picks up, as there is never a dearth of real estate magnates, land speculators, local mafia, their political patrons and...

11 postmen held for taking unauthorised commission Money involved is huge, says official The Central Bureau of Investigation on Monday unearthed a major scam in the disbursement of Old Age Pension (OAP) to senior citizens. Besides irregularities in the payout, investigators found that a majority of postmen took Rs. 20 as unauthorised commission from the beneficiaries. After a surprise check, special teams of the Anti-Corruption Branch arrested eleven postmen, including a woman, agency...

To avoid a big burden on the exchequer from the proposed food security law, the Planning Commission will propose some key changes to the plan, including a virtual abandonment of the concept of universal public distribution system (PDS) endorsed by the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC). Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia in a presentation to Gandhi later this week would suggest that under the proposed scheme, grain be...

Demanding a uniform guideline for acquisition of their land, a farmers' convention on Sunday accused the government of failing in providing an appropriate policy to get peasants out of debt-trap. "It is the government which is responsible for suicides by farmers due to debt... successive governments have miserably failed in framing a proper policy to favour peasants," All India Kisan Coordination Committee chief and former MP Bhupinder Singh Mann said...