Never mind wishful thinking by the government and RBI. Food will never be cheaper than what it is today. Not this year. Or in future. The reason is simple. Growing food in India has become extremely expensive. Crops are pricier even before they reach the market and face the pulls and tugs of rising local demand and exports. The farmer’s single biggest cost now is labour. Farm labour wages have doubled...
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Rural reality by CT Kurien
A meticulous study of the agrarian relations in three villages. ONE of our senior sociologists once drew my attention to the distinction between economics and other social sciences. Other social sciences – sociology and anthropology, for instance – he said, pay a great deal of attention to gathering primary data and interpreting them, whereas economics relies on secondary data for its analysis. This is, to a large extent, a fair...
More »Sonia's NAC favours statutory minimum wages under MNREGS by Vidya Subrahmaniam
Contradicts Centre's line on issue of minimum wages payment Going against the view of the United Progressive Alliance government, the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) has favoured the payment of statutory minimum wages to workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS). The NAC's line is in conflict with the January 1, 2009 notification issued by the Union Ministry of Rural Development, delinking the MNREGS wages from The...
More »For whom the bell tolls by Moushumi Basu
It is imperative that the committee constituted to look into charges of corruption in the Commonwealth Games should also include violations of labour laws within its purview. One of the more blatant and visible scams of the recently concluded Commonwealth Games relates to how the thousands of workers who worked on the games construction sites were denied minimum wages, safety equipment, housing and other benefits constitutionally due to them. In an interview...
More »In the shadow of abuse, exploitation by Cordelia Jenkins & Malia Politzer
Bardani Logun sits on a plastic chair in the communal room of a hostel in Rohini, north Delhi, where she lives with her toddler, and speaks candidly about being beaten, abused and starved. She is one of countless young women from the tribal belt of India who have migrated to Delhi to find work as live-in maids, hoping to send their earnings back home to support impoverished families in Jharkhand, Orissa,...
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