A river of bows and arrows slid through the urbane lanes of Raipur civil lines, coming to a startling stop outside the chief minister's gated and guarded residence in the autumn air of November 1st, the founding day of Chhattisgarh. As the police whisked them away, the tribal protestors told journalists they were asking for the most basic constitutional right: proportional reservation in government jobs. Eleven years ago, the sprawling state...

-The Hindu Business Line   The Rural Development Minister, Mr Jairam Ramesh's proposal to amend the law on minimum wages to permit a lower wage for employment under the rural jobs scheme (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or MGNREGA) makes practical sense. The Karnataka High Court ruled recently that wages set under MGNREGA cannot be independent of the MWA. Effectively, it means there can be no such thing as an...

Despite industry having preference from government trained manpower about 30% of the pass-outs failed to get a job in 2009 after getting vocational training from public sector institutes, a government survey has found. The reason, according to a survey done by ministry of labour, says that non-availability of jobs or low salary were the two prime reasons for high unemployment rate in Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs). Most of the trainees...

Sardarpura, 50 km from Mehsana town and not far from Vadnagar, home of Chief Minister Narendra Modi, had been declared a Samras village, part of one of the first schemes launched by Modi after he took charge in 2001. Under the scheme, a village could appoint its sarpanch unanimously without an election. In Sardarpura, sarpanch Kachra Tribhovan Patel and former sarpanch Kanu Joitaram Patel were among the accused. Both were among...

-The Hindu Justice Markandey Katju, Chairman, Press Council of India, argues that the media has a very important role to play in helping the country make the transition from an old feudal society to a modern industrial one quickly, and without much pain. The Role the Media should be playing in India by Justice Markandey Katju, (former Judge, Supreme Court of India), Chairman, Press Council of India To understand the role which...