-The Indian Express New Delhi: For two months, residents of NCERT Colony kept approaching authorities with complaints of contaminated water, but no action was taken. The authorities took notice only after two residents died and 70 fell ill. On Sunday, four-year-old Sanjana was declared dead at Safdarjung Hospital. Since then, several residents have fallen ill. The Delhi Jal Board (DJB) and the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) are, meanwhile, blaming each other for the contaminated water. Residents claimed...

-The Indian Express Why the proposed national minimum wage is the wrong answer to questions of unemployment and poverty The recent national labour conference - a trade union love fest with little real employer participation - demanded a national minimum wage. The trade union demand is a predictable positioning of narrow self-interest as national interest but the government's acceptance of their demand is unfair, delusional and economically stupid. Unfair, because it pampers a...

-The Hindu Hassan (Karnataka): Though officials of the departments of Public Instruction, and Women and Child Development may be enthusiastic about setting up pre-primary centres (Makkala Mane) to attract children to government schools, it has attracted the ire of anganwadi workers. With the setting up of these centres, anganwadi workers have to look after lower kindergarten classes aside from implementing the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS). The Makkala Mane centres were set up...

-Down to Earth About nine million women went out of the job market in the rural areas between 2009-10 and 2011-12, a grim facet of the employment crisis in the countryside The dismal trend in India's jobless growth story was reinforced when the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) of the ministry of statistics and programme implementation released the highlights of its 68th round of its surveys, conducted from July 2011 to June...

-The Hindu Whichever way one looks at the data, there is nothing much to crow about the 68th round of survey Whichever way one looks at the key indicators of employment and unemployment released by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) recently, there is nothing much to crow about in inferences that can be drawn from the data collected in the 68th round of survey conducted during the period July 2011 to...