-The Times of India India's official unemployment rate last year was 3.8%, data released recently by the Labour Bureau shows, but, as always, averages hide many stories. A closer look at the numbers shows that unemployment rises with education level to 10% among graduates, and higher still for backward castes. The Chandigarh-based Labour Bureau under the union ministry of labour and employment released the 'Employment and Unemployment Survey 2012' last week. The...

-The Daily Bhaskar   Sarpanchs and secretaries in Damoh, on Friday, have threatened to stall work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) protesting administration's decision to seek details via text messaging of the daily work being undertaken. The sarpanchs have said this was unjustified as it would incur additional financial burden. They added as many of them were not tech-savvy, they would not know how to message. However, district...

-The Hindu   The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has issued a notice to the Madhya Pradesh Chief Secretary, returnable with a report in six weeks, on allegation that 40 labourers were not traceable after heavy cranes collapsed at an under-construction cement factory in Narsingarh village in Damoh district. The NHRC was acting based on media reports. The reports said that about 300 labourers, mostly from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, were working at...

Vaccine-related deaths have shown an increase in the country since 2008, according to the information provided by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in response to an application filed under the Right to Information Act, 2005. The total number of deaths reported due to adverse effects from immunisation (AEFI) from 2001 to 2007 was only 136, whereas it went up to 355 in the following three years. The information has come...

The Madhya Pradesh government has banned genetically modified (GM) seeds in the state with agriculture minister Ramkrishna Kusmariya saying that scientifically re-engineered foodgrain and vegetables will become "non-vegetarian" and "end" Indian culture. The same minister had blamed crop destruction because of heavy winter rains three months ago on the "sins of the farmers". Kusmariya told reporters in Damoh on Thursday that his department won't permit use of GM seeds in the state...