The robust 9 per cent –plus growth in South Asia till 2010, driven largely by India, where it came down to around 7 per cent in 2011-12, had one major qualifier: it was mostly associated with a rapid rise in labour productivity rather than an expansion in employment, according to the latest report Global Employment Trends from International Labour Office. Up until the end of the millennium, that is just a...

For not paying compensation to the kin of the victims The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has asked Chief Secretary K. Jayakumar to appear personally before it on June 11, if the State government fails to take action on the compensation recommended for endosulfan victims in Kasaragod district. The Chief Secretary should file an action-taken report on the commission's recommendations before June 4, failing which he will have to appear before it....

The suspended Gujarat cadre IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt has requested President Pratibha Patil to direct the Central government to set up a two-member inquiry commission to inquire into the role and conduct of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and other Ministers and the adequacy of the administrative measures taken to deal with the aftermath of the Godhra train carnage in the State in 2002. In a letter to Ms. Patil released...

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday threatened to bring her anger to the streets of New Delhi and launch an agitation in the capital if the Centre didn't give in to her demand for a moratorium on debt repayment. In a rare and exclusive interview to TOI at the Writers' Buildings in Kolkata, the Trinamool Congress chief didn't once utter the words "threat" or "pullout", but her message was...

At Old Seelampur, an impoverished neighbourhood in Northeast Delhi, rows of hollowed-out computer monitors line a dingy lane. On another street here, room after room on either side is piled high with dusty keyboards and metallic innards of computers and other electronic goods. Welcome to the wasteland of India’s urban refuse. Here, heaps of electronic waste — or e-waste as it is more commonly referred to — wait to be dismantled...