A two-cup pot of Darjeeling tea costs Rs 500 at cafes in Kurseong and elsewhere. An eight-hour-long grinding shift at tea gardens earns the workers Rs 230 as daily wage.
Revenue loss from export crops like tea played a big part in Sri Lanka's rapid economic decline. For descendants of Tamil-bonded labourers, life is more difficult now.
Adding up to 17% of Assam’s population and 35% of its electorate, the tea tribes will be critical to the outcomes in about 40 out of 47 constituencies that go to vote Saturday.
There are 30-lakh tea garden workers in Assam, but they continue to be on the margins even though Assam’s Republic Day tableau called them the state’s ‘backbone’.
‘The tirade against capitalism is wholly unfounded. Capitalism as it has shaped during the past quarter of a century is a far better method of developing the economic resources of any country,’ wrote DN Hosali in 1956.
Mini deal will likely see no cut in 10% baseline tariff on Indian exports announced by Trump on 2 April, it is learnt, but additional 26% tariffs are set to be reduced.
India-Russia JV is also racing to deliver 7,000 more AK-203 assault rifles by 15 Aug. These are currently being made with 50% indigenisation and this will surge to 100% by 31 December.
Public, loud, upfront, filled with impropriety and high praise sometimes laced with insults. This is what we call Trumplomacy. But the larger objective is the same: American supremacy.
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