Nearly 37,000 expatriate Keralites have already lost their jobs due to recession. How do you plan to combat the effect of the latest Dubai crisis on Gulf NRIs? This is not going to be on any scale as with Kuwait during the Gulf War. But nevertheless, it is a matter of serious concern. It is better to be prepared than underprepared. We are planning two schemes. One, we are constituting...

People of dalit communities in the Gadarwara sub-division of district Narsinghpur in Madhya Pradesh are on the brink of starvation as they are facing harassment, economic sanctions and social boycott because they have refused to remove animal carcasses. A fact finding team of civil society organisations says that dalits at many places have been ‘imprisoned’ in their own houses as all entry and exit points have been blocked by the...

There is much about Dubai that is artificial and based on illusion: the man-made islands designed to represent a map of the globe; the indoor ski slope in the midst of desert; the incredible hotel with glass walls looking onto a sea aquarium mimicking the surrounding ocean. Dubai had also become synonymous with excess: building the tallest tower in the world and the biggest and most expensive luxury hotels, residences,...

The rural population is at present estimated at 85 crores. Ten per cent of the households are completely landless. Another 52 per cent have holdings of less than 0.2 hectare. The per capita agricultural land in the rural areas has come down to 0.12 hectare. According to the National Sample Survey, the annual income of an agricultural household from farming is less than Rs 12,000 and from all sources it...

DINDIGUL: Tribals from different villages on the Kodaikanal hill on Monday organised a demonstration here on Monday to flay a move to displace them from their land by Forest Department officials. They appealed to the government to implement the Forest Rights Act and redraw tribal areas. They alleged that forest officials prevented tribal people from collecting forest produces such as honey and firewood for their survival and foisted cases against...