-DNA The maggi controversy has brought other food products under the scanner of food safety inspectors, not only in India but abroad as well. The maggi controversy has brought other food products under the scanner of food safety inspectors, not only in India but abroad as well. United States food safety inspectors have labelled hundreds of made-in-India snacks unfit for sale in America, according to Wall Street Journal. The US FDA reportedly found...

-Economic and Political Weekly A categorical distinction is facing rough weather--that between urban and rural. If we take just agriculture, there is so much of the outside world that comes in not just as external markets but as external inputs. Further, many of our villages barely qualify as rural if we were to take occupation alone. So the earlier line that separated the farmer from the worker in towns is slowly...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: A shortfall in the count of scheduled tribe students has forced the Indian Institutes of Technology to re-engineer the qualifying score to join the tech colleges. The aggregate marks are down from 177 (35%) to 124 or 24.5% of 504. Similarly, the cut-offs for each subject have been revised from 10% to 7%. Downsizing of qualifying marks has taken place across the board. The minimum percentage of marks...

-The Hindu The child’s ‘right to be heard’ has been validated by a UN Convention. It’s time to let children decide when and what kind of labour is right. The debate over children working has been raging for centuries, with policies constantly changing to reflect the attitudes of a given time. During the World Wars, children were allowed to work as they were needed in factories and other services. When the soldiers...

-PTI Kolkata: With child labour decreasing at a dismal rate of only 2.2 per cent per year, it would take more than a century to end the menace, a report said on Thursday. An analysis of census data by non-governmental organisation CRY (Child Rights and You) has revealed that child labour has been decreasing at a mere 2.2 per cent per year over the last decade, contrary to popular perception of its...