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’.
Rosneft, the Russian state-owned oil behemoth, has large interests in India. Reliance has a contract to purchase 500,000 barrels of crude per day from the firm.
Fresh details of operation conducted by IAF, Army have come out in gazette notification giving citations of those who were awarded Vir Chakra for their bravery.
Education, reservations, govt jobs are meant to bring equality and dignity. That we are a long way from that is evident in the shoe thrown at the CJI and the suicide of Haryana IPS officer. The film Homebound has a lesson too.
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