Livelihoods

I have been working from home for six years now. I had done this WFH (work from home) routine earlier too, but for one reason or the other it was always the situation that would be in control of me. I have now turned the situation on its head—by streamlining things and being fair to myself. Attitude-related Professionalism: The bottomlines are two: deadlines and deliverables. You should be able to do your job, and that too in time. Working from home is a privilege—a luxury that most don’t have...

Raja Sonu’s eyes well up when he recollects the trying days and inhuman conditions under which his father would grovel in a dark, dingy room, trying to handcraft pieces of jewellery. His old man couldn’t see the son grow up – and try his own hands at jewellery; he succumbed to the working conditions. Such were the conditions under which artisans worked at jewellery workshops in Kolkata that Raja’s mother never wanted him to follow in his father’s footsteps. But he did, and ended up in far-away...

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Friday directed the Union ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) to respond to applications challenging diversion of 10,000 acres of Amrit Mahal Kavals grassland ecosystems to a variety of public sector and commercial projects by October 30 or face serious consequences. The South Zone bench of the NGT, based in Chennai, warned the ministry that failure to comply, by filing an appropriate response, would attract a fine of Rs1 lakh in each of the two...

In a decision, being described as unprecedented and significant, the National Green Tribunal has ordered a status quo on all project activities proposed in the ecologically-fragile Amrit Kaval grasslands of Challakere talkuk in Chitradurga district. More than 10,000 acres of this grassland had been diverted by the Karnataka government for nuclear, defence and scientific projects. On Wednesday, the National Green Tribunal (South Zone), Chennai, comprising Justice P Jyothimani and expert member R...

The last time, they had come in droves. This time, they brought their herds too. Over 1,000 people from 80 villages in Chitradurga district on Thursday flocked to Chitradurga town in protest against the massive diversion of around 10,000 acres of Amrithmahal Kavals land in Challakere taluk of the district for a variety of industrial, defence, institutional and infrastructure projects. The communities, whose livelihood primarily depend on livestock that they graze on these grasslands, herded...

His misty eyes and weather-beaten face belie his age. As Mushtaq slouches back against the wall, he listens to us with a resigned look writ large on his gnarled visage. He gives the impression that we are engaged in a futile discussion. A second look at him, and you will wonder whether he’s just waiting for the ordeal to tide over. He probably is. He, today, does not have a life. He has not a livelihood worth the name. Mushtaq was once an artisan who worked with furs; today he is just another...

Four out of five female sex workers in India have joined the profession voluntarily; they were not forced or sold into it. Prostitution is just one among several livelihood options available to women from poor backgrounds, says a new survey. The ‘First pan-India survey of sex workers’, conducted by Pune University researchers Rohini Sahni and V Kalyan Shankar, found that 79.4 per cent of sex workers (both those who entered the profession directly as well as those with prior experience in other...

The floods that ravaged Pakistan since July caused an estimated $9.7 billion in damage to infrastructure, farms, homes, as well as other direct and indirect losses, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank (WB) have said. "$9.7 billion is almost double the amount of damage caused by the 2005 Pakistan earthquake," said Rune Stroem, ADB Country Director for Pakistan, on Friday. The two organisations made the estimate in their Damage and Needs Assessment (DNA), a survey conducted...