The draft law on sexual harassment could make the workplace safer for women. Locker room talk, personal remarks and unsolicited advances will all get the official stamp of disapproval if the draft bill on sexual harassment is passed by the Cabinet next month. This comes 13 years after the Supreme Court framed the Vishaka guidelines on sexual harassment at the workplace. The draft bill based on these guidelines has been around...

Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) sleuths on Tuesday seized Rs 13.05 crore in cash stacked in sacks and boxes from the house of a relative of a scam-accused official in Guwahati. The house, in Assam's main city, is owned by Amjad Hussain, brother-in-law of RH Khan, one of the main accused in the multi-million rupee financial scam in Assam's North Cachar Hills district. Khan, a deputy director in the state social welfare...

There are numerous debilitating factors that disallow Indian agriculture from growing to its potential. The most critical of them, which, Ironically, are not receiving due attention, are related to land. Not only is the availability of land for farming shrinking, but its quality and fertility are also waning. Agricultural holdings are getting smaller and turning uneconomical to operate. The much-hyped land reforms have, right from the beginning, been misdirected. These have...

Price of caste arrogance: an unkempt look with crumpled clothes and overgrown beards and hair. All because the majority Thevars of Irunjirai, located 80km from Madurai, had warned the village’s lone dhobi not to press Dalits’ clothes. The dhobi has shut shop and fled the village of 130 families and so has the barber, fearing the same diktat from the Thevars. “Now we have no choice but to travel by bus to the...

Turmeric has reaped gold in Andhra Pradesh's Nizamabad district. Turmeric farmers B Pedolla Chinnaya and Badam Maruthi are celebrating their new prosperity at the local auto dealer. While Mr Chinnaya has plumped for a Hyundai Santro, Mr Maruthi has used his cash bonanza on namesake Maruti Swift. Chinnaya and Maruthi belong to Ergatla village where each has about four acres of land. While Chinnaya has made Rs 9 lakh from 90 quintals...