PATIALA/SANGRUR: Everyone agrees that theNREGA is causing a shortage of agricultural labour. Everyone, that is, except the workers themselves. For the last two years, the "success" of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (commonly referred to as NREGA) in reducing the number of men migrating out of India's poorest states has become something of a truism. In Punjab, this has resulted in dozens of news articles about the shortage...
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16 cops get life terms for fake encounter in UP-Pervez Iqbal Siddiqui
Twenty years after a case of staged shootout, a CBI court in Ghaziabad on Thursday held 17 policemen guilty and sentenced 16 of them to life imprisonment, making it perhaps the largest number of cops convicted for life at one go in the country. They were convicted of killing an alleged Sikh militant, Jaivender Singh Jasna of Amritsar, in a fake encounter in 1992. One of them was given a seven-year...
More »North India shivers, death toll 128
-PTI The entire North India shivered today as icy winds lashed the region claiming five more lives pushing the country-wide death toll this winter to 128. All the fresh deaths occurred overnight in Uttar Pradesh which has so far accounted for 88 fatalities. Chilly winds swept the state as mercury plunged to a low of 0.5 degrees Celsius in Najibabad area in Bijnor district. The national capital witnessed coldest day of the season recording...
More »Bonded labourers get land title after 70 yrs by Ashish Tripathi
Octogenarian Sita Devi was in tears when district magistrate of Gonda, Ram Bahadur, handed her the land ownership title. She was five-year-old when her family was forced into bonded labour by British forest officers posted in Gorakhpur. The family was given a piece of land for planting trees and to grow crop for its survival. They family was shifted to other place after five years for the same job. From...
More »UP school dormitory turns jail for students by Pervez Iqbal Siddiqui
A boarding school in UP's Bijnor district allegedly confined over a dozen students to the school dormitory for over a fortnight for failing to submit two months' fee. The children, including those of Class I, were not allowed to attend regular classes or sports in the evening. This came to light after parents of two brothers, who were among those confined, informed the authorities. The students were rescued and handed over...
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