Kolkata: As the Calcutta High Court begins hearing pleas seeking a CBI probe into the Sharada group chit fund scam on Tuesday, CNN-IBN has found that it is unemployment and stunted industrial and agricultural growth in the state that is forcing people to invest in ponzi schemes.
Seventy-year-old Sunil Sarkar recounts how he found his son Jayanta Sarkar's body at the terrace hanging by a rope. Jayanta, who was allegedly murdered, was one of the owners of Hello India Express Ltd, a fund that went bust. His partner Indrojit Roy committed suicide the next day. His family says it was all a fallout of the Saradha chit fund bust.
Jayanta's wife Papiya Sarkar said, "It's all because of Saradha, there was a panic in the market since January since the employees of Saradha weren't getting paid. Investors were panicking and the collection was shrinking."
Chit funds have long functioned in Bengal. It's a system that thrives mostly on small depositors from rural areas with abysmal banking facilities and financial illiteracy. The RBI says Bengal ranks among the states with the lowest financial inclusion....
more
09:11 AM, May 14, 2013
Yavatmal: Nagpur Bench of Bombay High Court has ordered the Maharashtra Government to file an affidavit on a PIL which alleges corruption committed in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Agency (MGNREGA) scheme in the district in 2011-12. The division bench of Justice Bhushan Dharmadhikari and Justice AB Chaudhari on Friday ordered the government to file an affidavit on the PIL by July 22, 2013. The PIL was filed...
02:05 AM, May 07, 2013
Bangalore: Lashing out at the BJP government in Karnataka for ushering in the "anti-climax" for the state, Union Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad on Saturday said that in comparison the Congress government led by SM Krishna, had taken the state to a position of "climax" in terms of development. "During 1999-2004 when there was a Congress government headed by SM Krishna, the focus of the globe was on Karnataka, the type...
02:00 AM, Apr 28, 2013
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has tabled its report on the Rural Employment Guarantee Act or NREGA, as it was utilised across India. CNN-IBN has accessed the report which says only 30 per cent of 129 lakh works worth over Rs 1.26 lakh crore approved in 14 states were completed. ...
11:49 PM, Apr 23, 2013
New Delhi: Downplaying CAG's report on the Rural Employment Guarantee Act or NREGA, Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh said that it is a performance and not a financial audit. Ramesh said, "It is CAG's job to find shortcomings and if they don't show, it means they are not doing their job." Ramesh further said that the audit was conducted only after the government requested for it. The clarification comes after...
03:50 PM, Apr 23, 2013
New Delhi: The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has tabled its report on the Rural Employment Guarantee Act or NREGA, as it was utilised across India. CNN-IBN has accessed the report which says only 30 per cent of 129 lakh works worth over Rs 1.26 lakh crore approved in 14 states were completed. Barely 30 per cent of NREGA works completed, while Bihar, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh used only 20...
12:37 PM, Apr 23, 2013
Jammu: After asking his partymen to switch to election gear, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, who is also working president of his National Conference (NC), reiterated on Wednesday his government's commitment to filling vacancies on a fast-track basis. Addressing a public meeting in the border town of Mendhar in mountainous Poonch district, 220 km north-west of Jammu, Abdullah said: "More than 70,000 vacancies in government departments will be...
07:05 AM, Apr 18, 2013
Shillong: Admitting that Meghalaya faces a growing unemployment problem, Chief Minister Mukul Sangma on Tuesday said the jobless youths in the state were many more than those recorded in the employment exchange register. "There is a growing unemployment in the state and this is reflected in the register of the employment exchange," he said in his reply to the motion on the policy of the government to tackle unemployment in...
04:30 AM, Apr 10, 2013
Washington: Unemployment rate in the United States dropped to 7.6 per cent in March, as against 7.7 per cent the previous month, with addition of some 88,000 jobs, according to latest job figures on Friday. "Both the number of unemployed persons, at 11.7 million, and the unemployment rate, at 7.6 per cent, changed little in March," the Department of Labor Statistics said. Among the major worker groups, unemployment rates for...
07:19 PM, Apr 05, 2013
Workers of tea gardens in Jalpaiguri district in West Bengal are battling acute poverty and unemployment since the tea gardens shut down 10 years ago. The workers are now seeking permission to kill themselves as the extreme situation has even driven many to sell off their women to the human trafficking trade. ...
10:45 AM, Mar 25, 2013
The CPI-M on Tuesday launched a scathing attack on the government, accusing it of following policies that favour the rich and were also leading to high inflation. ...
02:25 AM, Mar 20, 2013
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Friday lashed out at the previous BSP regime for failing to create employment opportunities as well as rampant corruption following which some of its ministers were later arrested. ...
03:21 AM, Feb 23, 2013
Targeting highly skilled talents from India and China, a bi-partisan group of US lawmakers have introduced a new bill in the Congress to create more than 125,000 new visas to attract global talents to America. The bill called Startup 3.0 proposes to help increase America's access to talent by creating a new set of conditional visas for 75,000 immigrant entrepreneurs and 50,000 foreign STEM (Science technology, engineering and math) graduate...
09:30 AM, Feb 16, 2013
Observing that in a globalised economy best jobs follows the talent be it either in Kolkata or Cleveland, US President Barack Obama stressed on the need of creating an environment in the country to attract the best talent of the world to keep America ahead in leadership. "In a global economy where the best jobs follow talent - whether in Kolkata or Cleveland - we need to do everything we...
12:02 PM, Feb 02, 2013
he global jobless queue will stretch to more than 200 million people in 2013, the International Labour Organization (ILO) said in its annual report on Tuesday, repeating a warning it has made at the start of each of the last six years. ...
11:50 AM, Jan 22, 2013
Attacking the Congress, the BJP on Saturday alleged it was raising concerns about youth and unemployment at Jaipur conclave after doing nothing on the issue for nine years it has been in power and that the ruling party's real 'worry' was on projecting Rahul Gandhi among young voters. ...
04:27 PM, Jan 19, 2013
Infosys is planning to lay off up to 5,000 employees as the software services provider looks to cut costs and boost sales, The Economic Times reported on Friday. The report came as Infosys Ltd executive co-chairman S Gopalakrishnan was quoted by other media reports as saying 2013 will be better than 2012 for India's IT industry. ...
10:47 AM, Jan 04, 2013
Dalit historian Kancha Ilaiah joined IBNLive readers for an interaction on whether the Quota Bill on promotions is necessary. Q. Sir, government should publish the no of posts available in each grade, both at the centre and state. Fix quota for each of the affected groups in ratio of agreed percentage and let the people in the group compete for such positions. Asked by: S ESHWAR A. Yes Q. Sir,...
01:36 PM, Dec 14, 2012
London: Being out of work could up the risk of a heart attack and it could be worse for those who are fired or asked to leave. Matthew Dupre and his colleagues from Duke University, US, examined links between different stretches of unemployment and the risks for heart attack, known as acute myocardial infarction (AMI), in more than 13,000 Americans aged 51 to 75 years. Dupre said: "Although the risks...
03:14 PM, Nov 20, 2012
New Delhi: Indians come on the top when it comes to preferring work over vacations and they tend to either cancel their holidays for urgent assignments or to indulge in office work even on off-days, a new survey says. Such holiday habits have made India the world's fourth most 'vacation-deprived' nation, even as more than two-third of Indian bosses (also fourth highest globally) approve of their employees' vacation plans, found...
01:13 PM, Nov 20, 2012
