-Hindustan Times The realities of India’s socio-economic situation are often cited as the reason for some of our more retrograde laws. The one on child labour is a case in point. The Union Cabinet has increased penalties for offenders but at the same time allowed children below 14 to work in select family businesses after school hours. The caveat is that such businesses cannot be hazardous but should be things like entertainment and...

-TheWeekendLeader.com/ Women's Feature Service Radha Shukla, 43, can't really remember the last time she took a holiday. "It's been so long since I have celebrated a festival with my family or even taken leave. But I don't mind it; my work is important," she says emphatically. To Shanta Koshti, 50, the years she spent as a poorly-paid ‘beedi' worker seem like another lifetime. "At present, my entire focus is on motivating people...

-The Hindu Mysore (Karnataka): The much-lauded biometric ration card system is believed to be fool proof and expected to bring the public distribution system (PDS) in step with the digital era. However, ironically, the feedback from the ground indicates that it is rejecting the poor and the impoverished it was intended to benefit. The biometric authentication system installed at the PDS outlets fails to establish the identity of many genuine beneficiaries, mostly...

The labour ministry has asked the Prime Minister's Office to direct the Planning Commission to allocate sufficient resources for the UPA government's flagship health insurance scheme for the poor in fiscal 2012-13 so that patients are not refused admission by hospitals.  The Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), that guarantees 30,000 annual health insurance to a family of five, ran into trouble earlier this year due to shortage of funds.  In a letter...

Labour-starved Kerala looks to the east It’s Their Gulf     There’s an influx of labour into Kerala from Orissa, Assam, Jharkhand and Bengal     Migrants work in building and road construction, plywood industry, brick kilns and in hotels     Skilled workers can earn Rs 500-700 a day     Researchers estimate there are 10 lakh outsiders working in Kerala. No official figures exist. *** On Sundays, the Gandhi Bazaar in Perumbavoor, a small town in Kerala near...