Trade unions and labour rights activists blame the high suicide rate in Tirupur, Tamil Nadu, on the practices of the garment industry. TIRUPUR has carved out a niche for itself in the world of garments. Its phenomenal growth in the highly competitive global scenario, particularly in the past two decades, has been made possible by the entrepreneurial spirit of its manufacturers and exporters and the sweat and labour of thousands of...
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Brake on development by BG Verghese
The minister for environment and forests, Jairam Ramesh’s order stopping Vedanta Aluminum Ltd and the Orissa Mining Corporation from mining bauxite in the Niyamgiri Hills to feed the company’s adjacent Lanjigarh aluminum refinery plant located in one of the country’s poorest districts in the name of tribal interest tends to miss the wood for the trees. It is based on the report of a four-member expert group under N C...
More »MGNREGA: Mixed success so far
Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MG-NREGA) has been in news mainly due to corruption or inefficiency. The country has spent close to Rs 40,000 crore this fiscal but a large number of urban middle class people and opinion leaders don’t know what to make of it. Cynicism apart, the rights-based scheme has proved to be a game-changer in rural India despite mixed success. The scheme has been relatively...
More »A dam serious problem by Neeraj Vagholikar
The downstream impact of dams in the Brahmaputra river basin has been a major issue of concern in recent years in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh (AP), even as plans unfold to develop at least 135 large hydropower projects to produce approximately 57,000 MW of electricity in AP alone. The past three months have seen major developments on the issue. Both an Expert Committee of Academics and a House Committee of...
More »Ailing Orissa by Prafulla Das
Contaminated water sources and the virtual absence of health care claim dozens of lives in the State, now in the grip of cholera. COME monsoon and the backward regions of Orissa are in the grip of water-borne diseases. This year too has been no different. According to official figures, 150 people had died of cholera and diarrhoea in the State as on September 15. Unofficial Reports put the toll at more...
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