-Reuters Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set in motion the first major revamp in decades of the archaic labour laws, part of a plan to revive the flagging economy, boost manufacturing and create millions of jobs. Successive governments have agreed labour reform is critical to absorb 200 million Indians reaching working age over the next two decades, but fears of an ugly union-led backlash and partisan politics have prevented changes to free...

-Economic and Political Weekly     Sustained and focused efforts have to be made by the Tamil Nadu state government to provide relief and rehabilitation to the drought affected people of the state. S Rajendran (myrajendran@gmail.com) is with the Department of Economics, Periyar University, Salem, Tamil Nadu. Due to the failure of the north-east monsoon in December 2013, Tamil Nadu is witnessing drought like conditions this year, leading to poor agricultural productivity, rural distress,...

-Down to Earth   UN agency's latest state of the forests report says poverty alleviation and rural employment should be the ulterior driving force in amending old forest policies Recognising the role of forests in providing livelihood to people, UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has asked nations to formulate people-centric forest policies. "It is time for forestry to shift perspective from trees to people," says FAO's annual "The State of the World's...

-Reuters NEW DELHI: About a quarter of India's land is turning to desert and degradation of agricultural areas is becoming a severe problem, the environment minister said, potentially threatening food security in the world's second most populous country. India occupies just 2 per cent of the world's territory but is home to 17 per cent of its population, leading to over-use of land and excessive grazing. Along with changing rainfall patterns, these...

-The Hindu   Uttarakhand is still in dire need of a development plan that is also sensitive to the fragile ecosystem that was crippled by the floods and landslides of 2013 Santosh Naudiyal stood on the verandah of a building in Rudraprayag last December while he narrated his story. On October 1, 1994, the night of the Rampur Tiraha massacre, Santosh and his friends boarded a bus to New Delhi to participate in...