Sections of vendors and “willing” farmers have alleged discrimination over the Singur bill, suggesting that they may move court if the state government does not address their concerns. Vendors demanded that they be compensated for the investment made at the Nano site. But the government, which has specifically said in the bill that “none of the vendors has obtained any deed of lease in terms of their respective letters of allotment”,...

Policies aiming to combat malnutrition are ignoring an entire generation of women whose overall health has a direct bearing on children’s growth, say advocacy groups and researchers Cradling a frail son on her hip and with a plastic bag stuffed with clothes in one hand, Tara Jadam walked into the rehabilitation centre inside the district hospital here to spend the next two weeks. On a hot afternoon, she has walked several miles...

-Reuters   Sitting at the edge of fields in the heart of India's grain bowl, Gurdayal Singh Malik shakes his head in resignation about the lack of workers needed for his 60-acre farm, blaming the government's flagship welfare program, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS), for the shortage. Ever since the start of the program, which guarantees 100 days of work a year for rural households, the flow of...

-The Hindu   Study says there are six crore child labourers in the country ‘Greed for maximisation of profit fuels demand for child labour' Amid heated debate over bringing back unwarranted money stashed abroad, a child rights outfit has claimed that child labour generates Rs.1.2-lakh crore of black money every year in India. According to a report ‘Capital Corruption: Child Labour in India,' prepared by the Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA), the figure was arrived...

-The Tribune   It appears there are no takers for the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NAREGA) scheme in Gautam Budh Nagar district of Uttar Pradesh. And the simple reason for this is that workers are getting higher wages at private projects and there is no dearth of such projects in Noida. Under the scheme, over 26,000 job cards were made in Gautam Budh Nagar. Further, bank accounts for 6,367 people...