Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar, who is leaving for Delhi tomorrow, will take up with Prime Minister the issue of a special package to the farmers who have lost their corps in the recent rains. He will also meet food and agriculture minister Sharad Pawar and others. Reddy along with finance minister Anam Ramnarayan Reddy, revenue minister N Raghuveera Reddy, chief secretary SV Prasad and other officials, reviewed the various efforts...

Rolling out a slew of measures for the working class in 2010, the government effected key reforms in some labour acts while also raising the annual rate of returns on employee provident funds to 9.5 per cent. The steps came as the government also unveiled the draft national policy on employment with suggestions of launching of a employment guarantee scheme in urban areas on the lines of NREGA. It amended the Payment...

Majority believe environment, livelihood are at stake Region falls in seismic zone III, which is not suitable for nuclear plants Villagers contest NPCIL claim that 626.527 out of 938 hectares acquired is barren It will be a mistake to construe the people's struggle against the proposed Jaitapur Nuclear Power Project as an agitation for higher compensation, says a social impact assessment report prepared by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. A majority strongly believe...

Stunned villagers are finding that governments have been leasing land, often for decades. The half-dozen strangers who descended on this remote West African village brought its hand-to-mouth farmers alarming news: their humble fields, tilled from one generation to the next, were now controlled by Libya's leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, and the farmers would all have to leave. “They told us this would be the last rainy season for us to cultivate our...

75 farmers have lost their lives in Andhra Pradesh The Communist Party of India on Monday asked the Centre to declare the loss of standing and harvested crops over 75 lakh acres across three States – Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Tamil Nadu – as a national calamity and announce compensation for it. CPI general secretary A.B. Bardhan, in a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, drew attention to the huge loss suffered...