Facing an acute shortage of migrant labourers for paddy plantation, the peasants of Punjab Thursday demanded to run special rains from Bihar to enable labourers reach Punjab. The paddy season in Punjab has started today. However the paddy plantation is expected to be delayed due to shortage of farm hands. Thousands of labourers reach Punjab every year for paddy plantation to make fast buck. The decline in migrant labourers has been...

With the shortage of migrant workers in Ludhiana, the farmers here are a worried lot and flock the railway station to find labourers to work in their fields. The labours basically migrate from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh and work in the farms in Punjab. The farmers waiting outside the railway station in search of labourers said they are having a tough time convincing the labourers to work in their fields. The farmers are...

Education for all, concerted efforts to reduce poverty, enhancement of social protection and political commitment have been identified as some of the measures to tackle child labour. On the occasion of World Day Against Child Labour on Saturday, several agencies including the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), International Labour Organisation, UNICEF, UNESCO and the corporate sector hailed the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE)...

Why is Madhya Pradesh ranked so low in the Millennium Development Goals like child and maternal mortality, extreme poverty, hunger and safe drinking water? Social sector allocation has increased only during the last few years. Before 2005, there wasn’t enough money allocated to it when compared to poverty alleviation schemes. Also, it takes time for the benefits of the allocations to reach people and for real change to manifest itself....

Punjab farmers have been struck a double blow on the eve of the paddy transplantation season, which starts tomorrow. Reliant on migrant labour to transplant paddy on 26 lakh hectares, they are witnessing a few arrivals on trains coming in from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Farmers also do not have the option of falling back on mechanised transplantation with the experiment launched with full fanfare by the state government last...