Unlike the educated elite who go Westwards, attracted by better opportunities and a luxurious lifestyle, those who land up in West Asia as waged labourers have a much harder time: Practically no rights, hostile working environments and absolutely no support systems. Why is it that the violation of their basic rights doesn't figure at all in the national imagination? About the same time that India aired “absolute displeasure and concern” over...

Though wages are not significantly high, West Asia continues to attract the poor looking for a break… In Benyamin's award-winning Malayalam novel   Aadu Jeevitham (A Sheep-like Life), based on a true life story, the protagonist, Najeeb, is held as a slave labourer on a sheep farm in a faraway desert in Saudi Arabia. For three years, he is forced to do back-breaking work, is kept half-hungry and is denied water to...

At least 10 RTI applicants have been killed over the past two years, with many others facing threats in their bid to expose corruption On a Republic Day when India celebrated 61 years of justice, equality and liberty, Amar Nath Pandey says he encountered the darkest moment of his life. In late evening on 26 January, a lone assailant leaped from the folds of darkness in the street outside his house in...

What the state government could not do, a group of rural educationists have done. The Sikhiya Vikas Manch, an association of teachers, mainly from Patiala, Fatehgarh Sahib and Sangrur, have got the Right to Education (RTE) Act translated into Punjabi to create awareness about the new law. At the centre of the exercise was Jagjit Singh Nouhra, 35-year-old head teacher of Government Elementary School, Mandour, in Patiala district who has been...

Udayanath Kandhapan of Girligumma village under Dasmantpur block was engaged in a field canal work under the MGNREGA. But one year after the completion of the work, he is yet to get his wages; so are other labourers working on the project. They have approached concerned officials several times regarding the matter, but to no avail. Disturbed over the apathetic attitude of the officials, Kandhapan registered his grievance at the...