-The Hindu   While migrant labourers see price rise as their primary concern, they still rate caste and religion as determining factors in their voting decision After the rural poor, farmers and the urban middle class, political parties are now seeking to make a vote bank out of migrant manufacturing labourers. The Bharatiya Janata Party's election manifesto promises the concept of "Industry Family" between workers and factory owners, but does not elaborate on...

-Down to Earth   People of West Bengal's Sunderbans region are setting up grain banks to safeguard against food crisis Subedan Bibi's mud hut is a few metres from the banks of the Bakchara river, a distributary of the Hugli in Sunderbans region of South 24 Parganas. When the river is in spate she and most others of Goyadham village move to the main market in the nearby block. "Floods and storms destroy...

-Outlook New Delhi: National Human Rights Commission today issued notice to Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka governments, taking suo motu cognizance of a media report which claimed that over three lakh migrant workers from Odisha would be unable to vote in the coming Lok Sabha polls as they are "tied in brick kilns" in three states. The Commission observed that the contents of the news report, "if true, raise a serious...

-The Hindu   Loans from labour agents will keep them away till mid-June BHUBANESWAR: Tied to brick-kilns in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka because of a ‘debt-bondage,' more than three lakh migrant workers from the western districts of Odisha will miss out on voting in the Lok Sabha polls. Odisha is going to the polls in two phases, on April 10 and 17. However, most migrant workers from these districts must have to...

-Live Mint Mint examines why millions of women are missing from farms, factories, colleges, and offices in India, which has one of the lowest ratios of working women in the world Mumbai: Every monsoon, minivans ferrying women labourers can be seen making their way from the small sleepy town of Wardha to Waifad village, 18 kilometres away. Urban workers from Wardha have come to occupy an integral part of Waifad's farm...