The Centre may create a new category under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 for resolving the conflict with the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 in implementaing wages rates. At present, wages under MGNREGA is linked to the Consumer Price index. However, it is less than the notified minimum wages for agricultural labour in six states-Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Goa, Mizoram and Rajasthan. The rural development ministry has...

-The Telegraph   The wages for workers of the Terai and Dooars tea gardens were revised at a tripartite meeting in Calcutta today, the hike of Rs 18 making it almost equal to the amount that the workforce in the Darjeeling gardens has been getting since April this year. According to the three-year agreement, the daily wage of the workers will be Rs 85 for the current year, Rs 90 for 2012-2013 and...

It is time to separate people's real needs from the arbitrary assessments of poverty that have guided Indian governments India's poverty line has always been a matter of huge debate, but it was a discussion mostly confined to economists and policymakers. But the matter has now gone public, following a row about an affidavit from the planning commission to the supreme court of India, in which the official poverty line was...

-The United Nations   Young men in Central and South America and Southern and Central Africa are most at risk of being killed in cases of homicide, while women face an increased likelihood of being murdered in domestic violence, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in a report unveiled today.   Evidence points to rising homicide rates in Central America and the Caribbean, which are “near crisis point,” according to...

-The Economic Times   If food inflation seems to be pinching more, it is because vegetable prices barely decline in winters, milk rises through the year and egg prices remain high in summers - all because of rising demand.  Over the years, the seasonal variation in prices has dropped and consumers do not have the option of shifting to cheaper produce to keep daily costs down, says a recent Reserve Bank of India...