Many governments in the developing world lack the will to eradicate child labour, says the third ILO global report on the deplorable practice. The effects of the present global economic and financial crisis, rather than its causes, have been the central preoccupation of organisations such as the International Labour Organisation in recent times. The ILO, in particular, has focussed on the impact of the crisis on populations within the least...

Aruna Roy, the prominent political and social activist who spearheaded the campaign to institute the Right to Information Act in the 1990s, is an ardent critic of the anti-people and exclusionary policies of the first and the second United Progressive Alliance governments. A recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award for community leadership in 2000, she heads the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathana (a trade union of workers and peasants) in Rajasamand, Rajasthan,...

Activist Gopal Krishna makes a case that the Unique Identification Number project is a gross violation of fundamental human rights and points out that a similar project/law in Britain is going to be repealed. This is with reference to a privacy invasion project which is relevant to India and all the democratic countries of the world. The very first bill that is to be presented by the UK's new coalition...

The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), the Union government’s flagship scheme to improve healthcare services in rural areas, is likely to be extended by three years to 2015, two senior health officials said. NRHM, which completes five years of implementation on Monday, seeks to reduce infant and maternal mortality rates, prevent disease, control population and ensure gender balance in rural India, according to the government website. It was launched in 2005 as...

If recent indicators are anything to go by – the failure to keep food prices down, the proposed national food security Act, the failure to ensure even minimum wages to construction workers at projects for the upcoming Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, to recount a few – it seems the country has given up even the pretence of caring about its children or their crippling, unbudging state of malnutrition. Leaders,...