-The United Nations   The annual flagship report of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) will this year focus on the challenges and disadvantages faced by children worldwide who live in cities and other urban areas.   More than a billion children, or over half the global population of minors, are now estimated to live in urban areas, according to UNICEF, which is releasing the report entitled “The State of the World’s Children 2012”...

Faulty procurement, rising farm inputs force West Bengal farmers to commit suicide LONG known as farmer friendly, West Bengal is now making headlines for farmers’ suicides. Reportedly 31 farmers, including landless farm labourers and small traders of agriculture produce, in the state took their lives between October last year and January. Twenty-one of the 31 deaths are from the state’s rice bowl Burdwan district. And this is probably a reason the spate...

Conservation measures have taken away the traditional livelihoods of nomadic tribes in Karnataka. AT a short distance from the world famous monuments at Hampi is the village of Hulihaidar in the fertile region of the “rice bowl of Karnataka” in Gangavathi taluk in Koppal district. Local residents say it was an important town in the Vijayanagara empire (1336-1646 C.E.) and the seat of a local lord. Today it is home to...

In an indication that the ruling Congress may be looking to evolve a comprehensive social security package ahead of the next general election, the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) has started a consultative process with four central government ministries aimed at linking existing and new schemes for the huge unorganized sector. The plan, according to an NAC member, is to issue one entitlement card to every worker in the unorganized...

India's economic growth has added over seven million new jobs every year for almost a quarter of a century. Workers have seen their wages - adjusted for prices - rise by nearly 3% a year. Poverty rates among wage workers and the self-employed have fallen. Going forward, with swelling numbers of new entrants - and more women entering the job market , as was the case during east Asia's rapid...