-The Hindustan Times In April, after yet another story of maid abuse came out in the open, a news magazine ran a cover story titled, ‘The new slaves’. While many would cringe at the thought of equating domestic workers with slaves, unfortunately that is exactly how many families treat their domestic help, taking advantage of a crowded labour market, lack of a credible support system for the help, weak implementation of...

Just in case our friends in the media were looking for more evidence, a new ILO report clinches the connection between old age pension and a country’s well being. The ILO report “World Social Security Report 2010/11: Providing coverage in times of crisis and beyond” puts India’s social security coverage in perspective of its peers. (the report can be accessed at http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/---publ/documents/publication/wcms_146566.pdf.  India is not only nearly at the bottom...

The same full page appeared twice in three years, the first time as news, the second time as an advertisement “Not a single person from the two villages has committed suicide.” Three and a half years ago, at a time when the controversy over the use of genetically modified seeds was raging across India, a newspaper story painted a heartening picture of the technology's success. “There are no suicides here and people...

It dismisses as “false and fabricated documents” fax messages claimed to have been sent by Sanjiv Bhatt The Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team has totally disagreed with the observations of amicus curiae Raju Ramachandran, and said no case can be made out against Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in connection with the 2002 communal riots under any of the Sections of the Indian Penal Code mentioned by him. Mr. Ramachandran, in his...

-Express News Service The Supreme Court appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) has concluded that even if Narendra Modi gave an illegal verbal instruction to allow Hindus to “vent their anger” after the Godhra carnage, it was not an offence. “...The interpretations made on alleged illegal instructions given by the Chief Minister by (police officers) Shri R B Sreekumar and Shri Sanjiv Bhatt, appear to be without any basis. Further, even if such...