-The Times of India PHAGWARA: Dalit residents of Mahan Singh Wala village in Sangrur district working as farm labourers have approached the Punjab Scheduled Caste Commission after jats not only passed a resolution imposing wages for various menial jobs but also warned them of social boycott if the rules are breached. The resolution, which reeks of caste-based discrimination, has been passed under the name of the village panchayat. Pamphlets spelling out the...

-The United Nations Almost 21 million people worldwide are trapped in jobs into which they were coerced or deceived and which they cannot leave, according to new estimates released today by the United Nations labour agency. Released by the International Labour Organization (ILO), the 2012 Global Estimate of Forced Labour found that the Asia-Pacific region accounts for the largest number of the 20.9 million forced labourers in the world – 11.7 million,...

Handloom weavers in Andhra Pradesh are in a crisis brought on by policy blindness and the emphasis on powerlooms. WHEN P. Pulliah, a weaver in the traditional cotton handloom centre of Chirala in Prakasam district of Andhra Pradesh, describes the sarees he crafts, thread by delicate thread, his face lights up with joy. He animatedly explains that the sarees have a border on both sides. And they are fully embellished, he...

In the initial months of governance by the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, attempts appear to have been made to begin subverting the positive results of the land reform programme of the Left Front. What is happening appears to be the inevitable outcome of political rivalry, the hegemonic rule of one party giving place to another, with the citadel of power changing its colour, making the “red” one “green”. But...

As a national debate rages over the Indian poverty line, in the heart of Bandra, one of Mumbai’s richest suburbs, in a shanty with barely enough standing space for two adults, three-year-old Priya Doiphode, clad in a red tee shirt, lies listless on a string bed. Priya is one of the 83,243 children in Mumbai who are malnourished, according to government data, a statistic that makes Mumbai the most malnourished...