Economy

When Nicaraguan workers won the case against Dole Food Co., Chinese lawyers were inspired to act, gathering up plaintiffs to hold U.S. companies liable for their failure to assess workers' safety.

Dantewada lies at the axis of three roads. Today each of these roads are lined with government-run refugee camps, home to at least 50,000 villagers -- mostly tribals -- that have been relocated since Salwa Judum began. Far from a sign of state control, the camps exist because authorities have defaulted control of vast swathes of the backcountry where Naxalites roam.

Of the 22 official camps throughout the south Bastar region, Dornapal is by far the largest. Row upon row of mud and sheet metal barracks shelter more than 17,000 people, though there are surely many more.

SOUTH BASTAR — Two years ago, Comrade Sunil used his given name and spent half the day at school, the remainder working the red fields of his ancestral village.

This all changed one night when he found his home torched and his brother dead outside, allegedly shot by state-sponsored civilian militia on the pretext of being a Maoist sympathiser.

Click on the image to view more photographs of the Naxalites, police and militia, and the tribal villagers in the region.

The bus ride from Hyderabad to Dantewada, the main town of Chhattisgarh's southern Bastar region, took about 16 hours. As the suburbs fell away, the smooth pavement on the road disappeared as well, but the lush beauty of the countryside that seemed to intensify with each mile made up for it.

When I awoke to a pale morning, I had the sensation of hurtling deeper into vortex of green.

Pulitzer Center grantee Loretta Tofani talked to KCRW's To The Point about occupational diseases Chinese factory workers suffer to produce cheap goods to export to foreign countries including the U.S.

RAIPUR, India -- To reverse military setbacks in key backcountry areas, India's Maoist insurgents have adopted a new strategy that favors coordinated mass attacks over hit-and-run guerilla warfare, and they have stepped up their recruitment efforts on the Internet.

U.S. companies say they’re not to be blamed for importing from Chinese factories with sub-par work conditions; it's up to China to figure out how to protect their own workers.

After a lifetime of spouting anti-govern ment vitriol, Varavara Rao has an easy smile. But when the silver-haired revolutionary poet greeted me at his Hyderabad apartment, his eyes burned like those of a man with plenty more in his tank.

For years, Chinese workers making nickel-cadmium batteries for U.S. distributors such as Eveready and Energizer complain of sickness, not realizing that cadmium can lead to kidney failure and death.

Hyderabad goes by the nickname “Cyberabad” for its thriving info-tech sector. Along with Bangalore, the two cities comprise the heart of India’s software empire thanks to high levels of education, job growth, and investment.

Exposure to chemicals in paint and varnish has claimed lives of Chinese workers who produce furniture for major U.S. companies like Restoration Hardware, Ethan Allen Furniture and Haverty Furniture.