Child workers want their unions recognised

EVEN AS international pressure mounts on India to improve the lot of its child labourers, the Delhi High Court has ruled against children forming trade unions to protect themselves against exploitation. In February, the court dismissed a petition by the Bal Mazdoor Union (BMU), a union of working children in Delhi, challenging the refusal of the registrar of trade unions to recognise it.

Ministerial reprieve

The Union ministry of environment and forests (MEF) had several New Year presents for Indian industry. Environment minister Kamal Nath -- for the umpteenth time -- relaxed his schedule for gross polluting industries to clean up or face closure.

Fluorosis-hit villages caught in red tape

THREE years ago, the state government directed the Uttar Pradesh Ground Water Board (UPGWB) to carry out a detailed survey of the fluorosis-affected villages in Unnao district. But it has yet to release the Rs 7 lakh that such a survey would cost. Despite this, the UP government recently directed the UPGWB to conduct another survey of the fluorosis-affected villages, thereby creating a piquant situation.

Burmese teak profitable for Indian traders

PRESSING need for foreign exchange is pushing the country on to the international timber trail. Though the ministry of environment and forests (MEF) chooses to be tight-lipped, official sources admit timber exports have been given a green signal. To begin with, timber traders will be allowed to re-export teak wood bought cheaply in Burma.

Slum again

Trade unionist Datta Samant has helped 2,500 families of quarry workers in Bombay to get their settlement recognised as a slum. The 35-acre plot amid sand quarries at Powai lake was notified as a slum in 1984. But plot-owner Jitendra Sheth was more interested in developing the site as prime real estate and so he obtained a stay on the government notification. Last week, responding to a petition filed by Samant, the Maharashtra Slum Areas Tribunal vacated the stay.

The JNU way out

The dons of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) have devised a way to get around cuts imposed by the University Grants Commission's in fund allocations that threaten teaching and research programmes in several of the country's universities and colleges. After six months of negotiations, senior economics professors at JNU struck a deal with the Export-Import Bank for a Rs 50 lakh grant to build an economics library equipped with ultra modern facilities for documentation and information retrieval.

Arrack threat

Conservationists in Kerala want to ban an arrack shop located in the heart of the Chinnar wildlife sanctuary because it endangers the grizzled giant squirrel (Ratufa macroura dandolena). The Idukki district sanctuary is one of only two places in India where the giant squirrel exists. Wildlife lovers contend the land on which the arrack shop is situated should have been acquired by the forest department when the Chinnar sanctuary was declared a protected area in 1984.

Stagnating scheme

Six months ago, the Union department of electronics (DoE) announced an ambitious plan to create electronics hardware technology parks (EHTPs) in order to help the country's stagnating electronic components industry by giving it access to international technology and to collaboration with multinationals.

Communal tinge

The controversy over the Konkan railway route through Goa is acquiring communal hues. The Diocesan Pastoral Council, which has adamantly opposed the coastal route contending it would cause dislocation, served notice last month on the state's Roman Catholic legislators to oppose the proposed railway actively or face the wrath of the church.

Big money in prawns

FISHERFOLK get to see little of the fabulous profits prawns fetch exporters. Between harvesting and exporting, the prawns multiply money 80 times over. Prawn seedlings are sold to middlemen at Rs 20 to Rs 50 a kg in summer -- when the seedlings are abundant -- and Rs 150 to Rs 200 in winter. The middlemen sell them at profits of upto 100 per cent to hatchery agents of large companies. The hatcheries rear the prawns, which in three months weigh about 20 to a kilo. The prawns are then harvested, processed, canned and exported and in the process, the hatchery's profit jumps 80-fold.