Bengal told to clear tea dues

Bengal told to clear tea dues: The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed Bengal and three other states to pay an interim amount of Rs 127 crore to hundreds of thousands of tea garden workers whose legal dues have remained unpaid for over 15 years.

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National Day of Mourning

Pic Courtesy: Shramajibi Mahila Samity, South 24-Parganas A call for the National Day of Mourning was given by the Right to Food Campaign and leading civil society networks on 1st June 2020. The Right to Food and Work Network, West Bengal in association with its member organizations also has marked the day in memory of the people who have died due to the apathy of the government agencies during the nationwide lockdown. Sit-in(s), demonstrations and related social action initiatives were taken by the field activists with adherence to physical distancing protocols. Women activists led the demonstrations in most of the field areas spread across twenty districts of West Bengal. The call to observe a National Day of Mourning to highlight the insensitive handling of the crisis arising out of the nationwide lockdown was necessitated by the outpouring of sufferings as reported by leading media houses and civil society networks. The call was supported by numerous people led initiatives...

Press Release

Undaunted by the heat and the sun, with temperatures reaching 40 degrees centigrade, members of the Right to Food and Work Campaign-West Bengal reached Kolkata today for a deputation to the Food and Supplies Department. Those participating came from the Himalayan foothills of North Bengal, the islands of Sunderbans , the burning red laterite soil of western West Bengal , the areas bordering the Bangladesh borders and the green plains surrounding the Hooghly. Those in the processions ranged from sex workers to midday meal cooks, agricultural workers to van rickshaw pullers, house wives to members of self-help groups, domestic servants to tea garden workers etc. This huge group of over 5000 people from 16 districts of the State, along with the urban poor of Kolkata, sent a delegation that met the Secretary Food and Supplies Department, Shri Durga Das Goswami and Joint Secretary and Nodal Officer (for the National Food Securit...

Starvation deaths among the Sabar Community at Lalgarh, West Bengal

On November 14, 2018 the Ananda Bazar Patrika carried a report of 7 alleged starvation deaths amongst the Lodha Sabar Community (declared as Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group or PVTGs by the Government) at a village called Jangal Khas in Binpur 1 block of Jhargram district. A team from the Right to Food and Work Campaign West Bengal visited the area on 19 th November 2018 to investigate the incidents. While in the area, we got reports that another four people from the same community had been hospitalised, and one of them had died on the way to the hospital. So we visited their villages, Jhitka and Bhumi Dhansol, also under Binpur 2. The names of team members and the people we spoke to are given in Annexure 1. Our main findings are given below It Is A Crime to Be Hungry The most striking thing about the investigation was the persistent, overwhelming presence of the police. The entry to Jangal Khas village was guarded by two uniformed police men with rifles. They were as...

Right to Food and Work Campaign, West Bengal

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