Suffering from extreme poverty and male oppression, the women of Darkali village in Madhya Pradesh, India, are now able to feed their families through employment under the MGNREGS. The wages obtained under the Scheme help them augment the family resource base. Jashmabai is working under the punishing sun on an earthen dam in her village of Darkali, in Madhya Pradesh's Alirajpur district, being built under the government-funded Mahatma Gandhi National Rural...

Though many migrant workers from south Madhya Pradesh have died of the incurable workplace disease called silicosis contracted from inhaling quartz dust in stone crushing factories in Gujarat, the public health system has carried out no comprehensive survey to identify the disease, which is often passed off as tuberculosis, many factories have not installed anti-pollution systems, and the NHRC has been sitting on the case since 2006 “He kept coughing…became more...