-Mainstream Weekly Intense and motivated propaganda, powerful national and international diplomatic pressure, verging on pure and simple arms-twisting of the kind the Third World has been facing for decades by means of the active role of the econo-mic hit-men in the policy establishments, huge cash-back lobbying, both in India and abroad, blunt attempts to bamboozle the persons holding key positions in India’s policy establishment through a combination of hissing and kissing...
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A claim to shame -Sitaram Yechury
-The Hindustan Times In response to the widespread protests and the nation-wide hartal last Thursday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh addressed the nation on Friday and tried to explain why these decisions had become inevitable. The thrust of his argument was, “We need a revival in investor confidence, domestically and globally.” For this, the current high fiscal deficit must be contained and, hence, the hike in the prices of diesel and cap on...
More »Notifying Farming as an Essential Service: An Authoritarian Manoeuvre-SAHRDC
-Economic and Political Weekly The Government of India is considering a proposal to notify farming as an essential service. This is ostensibly to bring drought relief to farmers suffering from a weak monsoon - a laudable goal indeed. However, if farming is deemed an "essential service", farmers and farm workers could lose many of their political and civic rights because the government can then invoke the Essential Services Maintenance Act to...
More »International treaty on Domestic workers’ rights to come into force next year–UN
-The United Nations A United Nations treaty which provides a set of international standards to improve the lives of millions of Domestic workers worldwide has now been ratified by a second Member State, the Philippines, allowing it to come into force next year, the world body announced today. The Convention on Domestic workers, which states that workers around the world who care for families and households must have the same basic labour...
More »A battle half won -TK Rajalakshmi
-Frontline A study finds that institutional support alone cannot help reduce maternal mortality in India. THE high rate of maternal mortality in India has been a cause for national concern, especially on account of the focus on reaching the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals by 2015. Although there is a growing realisation that it will be difficult to meet the MDG targets by that deadline, there is a renewed interest in the...
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