THE NEXT time labourers in Chhattisgarh working for projects under the Compensatory Afforestation Management and Planning Authority, or CAMPA, get paid, their wages will not be deposited in a bank account. They will be paid in cash. This July 26 order of the state forest department violates a Supreme Court …
Factories making Apple iPads and iPhones in China are forcing staff to sign pledges not to commit suicide, an investigation by two international NGOs, Centre for Research on Multinational Companies and Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbe-haviour, revealed. At least 14 workers at Foxconn factories in China have killed themselves …
Tea grown on the steep slopes of Darjeeling hills, connoisseurs swear, is unlike anywhere else in the world. Epicures use a plethora of adjectives to describe the “champagne of teas”: brisk, flowery, round, mellow and sparkling. Brewed properly, the Darjeeling tea leaves yield a thin-bodied, light-coloured liquor with a floral …
In 1990, McDonald’s threatened activists of a London-based ethical food group with libel suits. A pamphlet, What’s wrong with McDonald’s, had earned them the ire of the fast food biggie. Three of the activists from London Greenpeace—not to be confused with Greenpeace International, which distanced itself from the matter— apologised …
Once the mouthpiece of the Chinese government, the People’s Daily has become slightly heretical. The paper says wages need to rise to protect stability. It says the made-in-China model made popular by cheap labour and solid infrastructure is in for a crisis. Recent strikes in multinational firms in South China …
Based on fieldwork in the Tiruppur garment manufacturing cluster in Tamil Nadu, this paper focuses on the ways in which ethical corporate regulations are shaped by and constitutive of power relations and inequalities in the global market. It explores the ways in which standards imposed on supply firms help to …
DELHI Migrants might be causing uproar in some parts of the country but photo-journalist Harish Tyagi sees their lives in an entirely different light through his lense. In an exhibition titled Distress Migration and its Effect on Children, Tyagi's pictures tell an often-sor
Kharaghoda, a large village located on the edge of the Little Rann of Kutch in Gujarat, has a population of 12,000. Here's the shocker: 500 of them are widows. That's an unusually high figure but hardly surprising considering they belong to the Agarias, or salt pan workers. Working in harsh …
At least 27 Chinese miners were missing in two separate accidents concealed by mine owners in northeastern Heilongjiang province, a state-run news agency reported Wednesday. Xinhua News agency said 14 of the miners were missing after a cave-in at the Jianbao Coal Mine on Feb. 28 in Jixi city. The …
Some 85% of 151 surveyed local governments including Japan's 47 prefectures do not keep taps on the conditions of people who have developed mesothelial tumors due to asbestos exposure, a parliamentary research office said in a survey report Thursday. Of the 151 local governments, 76% were found to have not …
This paper documents the main findings of a study on food insecurity and vulnerability in the Indian state of Orissa in support of promoting interventions for food security and livelihoods at state level. The paper analyses the main characteristics and causes of food insecurity and vulnerability. It seeks to identify …
