-The Hindu Delayed payments to poor households threaten to scuttle scheme to build toilets under Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan Churu (Rajasthan): Three years ago, Churu, a town of 1.2-lakh people in the Thar desert, was ranked India's dirtiest town by the Planning Commission. Two years ago, the overall district had over 40 per cent households with no toilet of their own. Today, the district is close to its goal of becoming open defecation-free,...

-The Business Standard A study finds migration doesn't lead to child labour; it impacts the education of child migrants Migration has helped rural incomes and, to a certain extent, agriculture. Typically, migrants from rural areas are short-term migrants. Often, adult migrants take their children with them, and this leads to the overall picture being distorted. A 2010 study on the impact of short-term - often as short as a month - migration on...

-Kafila.org This fact-finding exercise was coordinated by the CENTRE FOR POLICY ANALYSIS. Team members were the human rights activist and former civil servant Harsh Mander; former Director-General of the Border Security Force, E N Rammohan; Professor Kamal Mitra Chenoy of Jawaharlal Nehru University; National Integration Council member John Dayal; senior journalist Sukumar Muralidharan and CPA Director and senior editor Seema Mustafa. Introduction and Overview The first impression of the Muzaffarnagar countryside, now green...

-The Times of India AHMEDABAD: When Mahatma Gandhi promoted the use of khadi for cottage industries of India, little did he imagine that workers of this industry would have to openly rebel for being meted out step-motherly treatment by the government. The Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) has not paid the 20% rebate on the production value of khadi to several khadi institutions for two years in a row, claim...

-The United Nations A United Nations treaty entering into force today will extend the labour and social rights of some 53 million domestic workers around the world. From today, the Domestic Workers Convention will be legally binding for signatory countries. The treaty was adopted in 2011 by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and is the first of its kind. "Today's entry into force of Convention 189 sends a powerful signal to more than...