-The Hindu Business Line Nine years after a landmark law empowering local communities, thousands of forest villages across India struggle to regain their traditional rights over resources and livelihoods Sundar Singh Rabha always carries a certain file folder. He holds it against himself in a hot tin car as it jangles along forest roads towards village Shalkumar, in a northern corner of West Bengal. His phone rings without respite. Every few minutes,...

-The Hindu Business Line The entire tea industry in India faces an uncertain future. And young people don’t want to work in Tea Gardens anymore After a steady run for nearly a decade, the tea industry is now facing tough times. Both, production of gardens in the organised sector and leaf prices are virtually stagnating. And exports no longer hold out much promise. Between January and July this year, all-India production was 553.21...

-The Times of India KOLKATA: If things go according to plans, underprivileged kids from over 68 countries will converge in the city to play football in 2016. The world cup soccer tournament for underprivileged kids, organized by the Scotland based foundation called Homeless World Cup, has tied up with the Nagpur based slum soccer, a national initiative that has been working to use football as a platform to better the lives...

-The Telegraph Guwahati: The Tea Board of India is giving a big push to organic tea production in the country for the first time by providing 25 per cent more subsidy than the normal subsidy of 30 per cent. This has for the first time been incorporated in the Twelfth Plan by the board to give a boost to organic tea, which has been gaining momentum in the country. Besides, it has a...

-The Telegraph   Tribal ministry to cover 6 lakh children of indigenous communities in Assam     Guwahati: The Union tribal affairs ministry, with the help of the health department, is planning to cover at least six lakh tribal children in Assam, including those of tea garden workers, under its sickle-cell anaemia screening programme this year. Sickle-cell anaemia is a blood disorder characterised by an abnormality in haemoglobin that carries oxygen from the lungs to...