-The Hindu Though there are improvements in employment and labour conditions on the work floor and in workers’ hostels in textile mills and garment factories in the State, “major labour abuses continue to occur,” according to the latest report by non-government watchdogs. The Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO) and the India Committee of the Netherlands (ICN) published a report, ‘Captured by cotton’, in May 2011 on the exploitation of Dalit...

-The Telegraph Next time you take a 10-minute coffee break, spare a thought. By the time you come back refreshed, a mother would have died. India recorded 56,000 maternal deaths in 2010, according to a UN report, which makes it six every hour — or one every 10 minutes. The report, released in India on July 2, means that despite various schemes launched by the Centre and state governments, the number of deaths...

-The Telegraph The second wife of a realty firm managing director, on the run for months for being part of a housing hoax that deprived hundreds of Jharkhand residents of crores, surprised investigators today by surrendering in the court of a judicial magistrate. Anamika Nandi, the second wife of Sanjeevani Buildcon Private Limited managing director and prime accused J.D. Nandi, turned up at the court of S. Kumar around 11.30am and dramatically...

-PTI Rajkot: The consumption of bottled water in India has shown a jump of 21 per cent in last fiscal but still India is far behind as compared to global average, according to a research recently conducted by leading marketing firm IKON.  The per capita consumption of bottled water in India was at 16.20 litres during 2010-11 and jumped by almost 21 percent to 19.60 litres in 2011-12, IKON said in its...

-Down to Earth World is moving towards natural capital as a measure of economic growth After using gross domestic product, or GDP, as the universal measurement of economy for six decades, the world has begun looking beyond this gold standard for measuring a country’s economy. On May 25, 10 African countries agreed to incorporate their natural capital, or value of their natural resources, into their national accounts to make better economic decisions. The...