Despite its slackening industry, the common perception of West Bengal as a backward state has little substance when one looks at the facts. Most of us are conditioned to view economic development in terms of industrialisation. While industrialisation is essential for economic transformation, it is not as if economic growth is not possible without it. The sectoral structure of India's gross domestic product (GDP) and its slow transformation makes a good...
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Maximum Dithering for Minimum Wages!
Even though the Central Government agreed to link the wages paid under MG-NREGA to the Consumer Price Index for Agricultural Labourers (CPIAL), it shied away from paying statutory minimum wages in various states of India. Their logic for this: Lack of clarity on who will bear the extra financial burden—the Centre or the states? A letter from the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to UPA and NAC Chairperson Sonia Gandhi dated 31...
More »RTI helpline wins award by Ankur Jain
You might not get a kilo of onions for Rs 54, but this Right To Information (RTI) helpline helps thousands every month to fight for their rights — for only that amount. Mahiti Adhikar Gujarat Parishad (MAGP)'s helpline, which was launched in May 2006 and has received more than 60,000 calls till now, is managed by a team of volunteers at a monthly expense of just Rs 54. The helpline has...
More »Tardy progress by TK Rajalakshmi
The Protection of Women from Domestic violence Act has in its four years faced many challenges in implementation, says a monitoring report. FIVE years ago, Parliament enacted a significant piece of legislation relating to women. The Protection of Women from Domestic violence Act (PWDVA), 2005, designed as a civil law, came into effect a year later, in October 2006. The fundamental feature of the Act was that it empowered magistrates...
More »Violence at home linked to deaths of 18 lakh girls by Kounteya Sinha
The deaths of 18 lakh girl children in India in the past two decades have for the first time been linked to Domestic violence against their mothers. After examining over 1.58 lakh births that took place between 1985 and 2005, an international team of researchers found that spousal violence against wives increased the risk of death among female children, but not male children, in both the first year and the first...
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