MPs demand wage board for journalists

New Delhi, Dec 1: CPI(M) member Chittabrata Majumdar today demanded in the Rajya Sabha that the government set up a Wage Board for journalists and other newspaper employees in the country in order to make their salaries compatible with the rising prices of commodities.

Raising the issue as a Special Mention, Mr Majumdar said that the last Wage Board, constituted in 1994, submitted its report in 1998. Since then, there has been no mechanism to set right the anomalies in the wages of the newspaper employees, he added.

Mr Pyarelal Khandelwal, BJP, expressed concern about the razing of houses of minority Hindus in Kashakhstan in Central Asia. It was ironic that the Indian Government was yet to react even though British Prime Minister Tony Blair had already expressed concern, he said.

''I want the government to raise the issue at an appropriate international forum to draw attention to the plight of microscopic Hindu minorities outside India,'' he said.

Mr Surendra Lath, BJP, urged the government to revise the royalty on coal to help the states sustain heavy losses.

UNI