-Mainstream Weekly Intense and motivated propaganda, powerful national and international diplomatic pressure, verging on pure and simple arms-twisting of the kind the Third World has been facing for decades by means of the active role of the econo-mic hit-men in the policy establishments, huge cash-back lobbying, both in India and abroad, blunt attempts to bamboozle the persons holding key positions in India’s policy establishment through a combination of hissing and kissing...

Remember Arjun Sengupta Committee Report? It’s the same report which put paid to government’s shifting poverty estimates by asserting that almost 80% Indian survive on less than Rs 20 per day. Known as the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganized Sector (NCEUS), the report has gone missing from the public domain. The official website of NCEUS is no more working: http://nceus.gov.in, raising doubts regarding someone, somewhere trying to hide...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: Contrary to MNS chief Raj Thackeray's ongoing tirade, migrants to cities like Mumbai are not 'outsiders' from other states. Nearly 70% of them come from rural or urban areas within Maharashtra itself, reveals an analysis of data from the National Sample Survey Organization's (NSSO) 64th round. For every migrant coming to a city in Maharashtra from the urban areas of other states such as Bihar, Uttar Pradesh...

-The Times of India The Union Cabinet on Tuesday is expected to clear the proposal to amend the anti-child labour law which proposes a complete ban on employment of children up to the age of 14 in any industry — hazardous or non-hazardous. According to the proposal, children between 14 and 18 years can be employed, but only in non-hazardous industries with property safety mechanism. As of now, the Child Labour (Prohibition and...

-The Hindu The listing of the Protection of Women Against Sexual Harassment at Workplace Bill for discussion and adoption in the current session of Parliament is a welcome step. It is also welcome that the government has reversed its earlier unjustifiable position of keeping domestic workers outside the purview of the proposed legislation. Amendments moved on August 7 now include these sections of working women in a sector which has seen...