-DNA If we observe closely, the women entrepreneurs who run a variety of local small businesses are drivers of the local economy in many ways. Never ending stretches of backwaters and lush green coconut groves welcome you as you drive through the southern Indian state of Kerala. It is the only state in India where the sex ratio is of 1084 females per 1000 males. At 92%, Kerala has one of...

-The Hindu Business Line Nine years after a landmark law empowering local communities, thousands of forest villages across India struggle to regain their traditional rights over resources and livelihoods Sundar Singh Rabha always carries a certain file folder. He holds it against himself in a hot tin car as it jangles along forest roads towards village Shalkumar, in a northern corner of West Bengal. His phone rings without respite. Every few minutes,...

-Reuters NEW DELHI: Government's main program to fight child malnutrition has been hit by budget cuts that make it difficult to pay wages of millions of health workers, cabinet minister Maneka Gandhi said on Monday in a rare public criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's policies. The government in February slashed social sector budgets to boost infrastructure spending in a bid to fasten the pace of economic recovery. States were asked to...

-The Hindu Though outlawed in 1976, bonded labour lives and thrives in the State, as highlighted by the Sivaji Ganesan committee. However, the State continues to maintain an Ostrich-like attitude, failing to conduct periodic surveys and implement rehabilitation programmes The State of Karnataka in 2000 woke up to news about a certain medieval-era brutality being committed on bonded labourers, when the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha unearthed the case of five labourers being...

-IPSNews.net NEW DELHI: Women account for less than half of India’s population but their participation in the workforce is way below that of men. They account for 27 per cent of the workforce. If – and it is a big if – their number were to increase to the same level as men in the workforce, the country’s output of good and services would expand by 27 per cent, argues Christine...