-The Hindu Across the country, unless adequate jobs are created for the large labour force, the frustration of the youth is not likely to be contained. In Gujarat, the Patels or Patidars, who constitute about 15 per cent of the State’s population, are an economically and politically dominant upper caste. As successful farmers, as small and big industrialists, as traders as well as non-resident Gujaratis, spread practically all over the world, they...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's labour arm has walked out of the countrywide strike that 11 unions had called on September 2 to press for a 12-point charter of demands. A recent government survey had ranked the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) as India's largest trade union body with a membership of 62 lakh. Congress-affiliated Intuc came a distant second with 39 lakh members while the CPI's labour wing, Aituc,...

-The Indian Express With assembly elections due next year, and whispers about how UPA sat on religion census data for fear of a backlash before the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress is maintaining a studied silence. In the decadal growth of the Muslim population of India between 2001 and 2011, the highest in terms of percentage points has been in Assam. Its Muslim population has risen from 30.9 per cent to...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday announced that the government will not renew the controversial land acquisition ordinance that lapses on Monday and declared its readiness to incorporate any suggestions in the bill pending before Parliament. "We had issued an ordinance which lapses tomorrow (August 31). I have decided, let it lapse. We will not renew it," Modi said in his 'Mann ki Baat' radio broadcast. "It...

-The Statesman It's the same story every year. Heavy rains, huge volume of water spilling over the water channels and mismanagement of rivers in spate, leading to heavy floods inundating large parts of India. This year too the story is no different. Even as this article goes to print, Assam, West Bengal, Manipur, Odisha, Gujarat and Rajasthan almost a third of India is either facing floods or coping with a trail...