A bill to raise the ceiling of gratuity for employees to Rs10 lakh from Rs 3.5 lakh was passed by the Lok Sabha without discussion Monday. The House, which witnessed an opposition furore over the 2G spectrum “scam” and reports about alleged involvement of a central minister in an illegal arms deal, also adopted the Employees’ State Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2009 without any debate. The Payment of Gratuity (Amendment) Bill 2010, introduced...

The demand for restoration of caste-based census got a solid boost on Tuesday, with members of the Union Cabinet making a forceful pitch for the enumeration of OBCs nationally. A decision on the issue was deferred as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stressed detailed discussions, and there are indications that inclusion of caste as one of the criteria for the census may not be possible for the exercise that is already...

For years, they have been waking up early and starting late. But India's northeast, which sees sunrise almost two hours before Mumbai, has decided it's time to set the clock right. The region's demand for a separate time zone has never been more vociferous April is usually the cruelest month for India's northeastern states. Cyclonic storms lash the region with vengeance and rip apart homes and hopes. But in all...

A decade-old scheme to organize the rural poor into self-help groups and impart training to them has brought hundreds of thousands above the poverty line, says the rural development ministry, which executes the programme. Some 4.5 million people living below the poverty line have been trained under the Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana, or SGSY, while 3.5 million self-help groups (SHGs) have been created since its launch in 1999. An evaluation of SGSY...

INSIDE his hovel of branches and rags, a grizzled pauper called Badshah Kale keeps a precious object. It is a note, scrawled by a policeman and framed by Mr Kale, proclaiming that he “is not a thief”. For members of his Pardhi tribe, who are among some 60m Indians considered criminal by tradition, this is treasure. Squatting beside Mr Kale, on a turd-strewn wasteland outside Ashti, a village in India’s western...