-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Centre is considering doubling the monthly pay of the country's 25 lakh midday meal cook-cum-helpers to Rs 2,000, but the unions say the proposed raise is too little. The cooks' current pay of Rs 1,000 - a fraction of the official minimum wages - has been static since 2009, with successive governments keeping a proposed hike pending for the past five years. Now, a year before the general...

-Hindkisan.com Alarmingly, despite wages paid under MGNREGA being much lower than the standard minimum wage in most states, increasing number of people from rural households are applying for jobs under the employment scheme. This trend is an indicator of the mounting distress in the rural economy which is aggravated by paucity of jobs. Mocking the economic condition of the distressed rural working community, the Union Government has decided to uphold the low...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: A study conducted by border guarding force Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) on "Human Trafficking on Indo-Nepal border" claims the number of victims brought illegally into the country has gone up by 500% since 2013 with girls trafficked from villages and Terai region of Nepal sold to brothel owners in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and other cities for up to Rs 50,000. In 2013, 108 girls/children were rescued...

-Hindustan Times The murder of a woman in Alwar points to India’s most shockingly under-reported story on why nearly 200 lakh women have quit jobs All Usha Devi wanted was to give her kids a good education. The wife of a construction worker knew that her husband’s income was not enough to educate her children, Tanuja, 15, and Dheeraj, 10, and, so, she took a job at a plastic factory. Not everyone was...

-The Hindu Farming must be treated as a market-based enterprise and made viable on its own terms The week-long farmers’ march which reached Mumbai earlier this month, on the anniversary of Gandhi’s Dandi March of 1930, was unprecedented in many ways. It was mostly silent and disciplined, mostly leaderless, non-disruptive and non-violent, and well organised. It received the sympathy of middle class city dwellers, food and water from bystanders, free medical services...