Unlike the educated elite who go Westwards, attracted by better opportunities and a luxurious lifestyle, those who land up in West Asia as waged labourers have a much harder time: Practically no rights, hostile working environments and absolutely no support systems. Why is it that the violation of their basic rights doesn't figure at all in the national imagination? About the same time that India aired “absolute displeasure and concern” over...

Though wages are not significantly high, West Asia continues to attract the poor looking for a break… In Benyamin's award-winning Malayalam novel   Aadu Jeevitham (A Sheep-like Life), based on a true life story, the protagonist, Najeeb, is held as a slave labourer on a sheep farm in a faraway desert in Saudi Arabia. For three years, he is forced to do back-breaking work, is kept half-hungry and is denied water to...

The crime branch on Friday filed a chargesheet against Shailesh Pandya in the murder case of RTI activist Amit Jethava. The 400-page chargesheet revealed that Pandya had earlier made a failed attempt also to kill Jethava. The chargesheet consists of statements of 151 witnesses. It states that Pandya was given a contract of Rs 11 lakhs to eliminate Jethava by Bahadur Wadher and Shiva Solanki. The duo hatched the conspiracy to...

With 80 per cent of the world’s people lacking adequate social protection and global inequalities growing, top United Nations officials are calling for a new era of social justice that offers basic services, decently paid jobs, and safeguards for the poor, vulnerable and marginalized. “Social justice is more than an ethical imperative; it is a foundation for national stability and global prosperity,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a message ahead of...

Altogether 17 workers of Dungarpur district have received unemployment allowance after they were not given work under provisions of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). Since implementation of the MGNREGA in the state, this is the second such instance of unemployment allowance payment, widely seen as an assertion of the workers' right under the Act. In 2009, a lone labourer in Bhilwara was paid the allowance after...