Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday said that the country targets to create 50 crore skilled manpower by 2020 to become an economic superpower. "We are focussing at skill development to get demographic dividend from our huge young population. In the next 10 years a 50 crore skilled workforce will be created," he said at the foundation stone laying ceremony of Scholar School in Bagnan here in Howrah district. Two-thirds of...

Faced with a massive public outcry and fierce opposition from tribals, the government has, in a landmark move, decided to give tribals and other affected populations a share of the profits made from exploiting mineral resources from their land. The Group of Ministers (GoM) headed by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee on Friday finalised the contours of the draft for a new mining bill, which makes it mandatory for mining companies to...

A team of officials, led by Assistant Commissioner Prabhuling Kavalikatti, raided a black stone quarry in Vitla in Bantwal taluk and rescued 39 bonded labourers, including some children, on Wednesday. While some of them are from Krishnagiri district in Tamil Nadu, others belong to Kanakapura near Bangalore. They were given meagre wages and were not allowed to leave the quarry for six years, according to Mr. Kavalikatti. He described it as...

The Radia tapes reveal the networks and routers, the source codes and malware that bind the corporate and political establishments in India. As squeamish Schoolchildren know only too well, dissection is a messy business. Some instinctively turn away, others become nauseous or scared. Not everyone can stomach first hand the inner workings of an organic system. Ten days ago, a scalpel — in the form of a set of 104 intercepted...

Mahitosh Sarkar came here from his distant village in West Bengal 12 years ago looking for a better life, and he found it. He abandoned the penniless existence of a subsistence fisherman to become a big-city vegetable seller. His wife found work as a maid. Their four children went to School. Their tiny household, a grim but weather-tight room in a dilapidated tenement, had a color TV and a satellite...