The exploitation of migrant construction workers has grown alongside the expansion of the industry. It's time the government got serious about upholding the law. A recent report in The Hindu on the violation of labour laws at a massive construction site belonging to the Army Welfare Housing Organisation in Bangalore raises yet again the repeated neglect of regulations relating to the employment and welfare of workers by construction companies in India. For...

-Reuters KHAMMAM (India): It was a deal struck almost 40 years ago by a poor, illiterate Indian farmer, driven by desperation after a drought wiped out his crops and left his family close to starvation. The agreement: 10 acres of land, the size of four soccer pitches, for a mere 10 kg (22 lbs) of sorghum grains. "My father-in-law pawned the land for food," said Kowasalya Thati, lifting the hem of...

Remote controls are identified as technical devices which are used for various purposes ranging from the launching of space-ships to the monitoring of toy cars. But of late, these devices are being used to direct policies for nation states which are formally sovereign. We speak here of the powerful lobby of international credit rating agencies like Standard and Poor's (S&P), which has just delivered its sermon that India is no longer...

-The Economic Times Objections by the Opposition and even treasury benches to the Marriage Laws (Amendment) Bill - which seeks to make divorce easier - has forced the government to review the legislation. The government appears set to accept the demand for a cooling off period before divorce. It will now be left to the discretion of the judge to determine the time between the petition and granting of divorce. The government...

Organising a food festival can hardly be described as an act promoting hatred between students or communities. The controversy over the Beef Festival recently organised on the campus of Osmania University in Hyderabad and the threat of professors being investigated by the police for “instigating” the organisers needs to be understood in the context of the larger politics of food and policing of food practices. Across the country, different communities in different...