| India's tea sector seeks law change to diversify
COONOOR, India (Reuters) - India's struggling tea sector is seeking changes in the law to allow for diversification into other crops to fight rising production costs and increase returns, officials said on Monday. At present laws such as the Plantation Labour Act, land reform acts of various states and Minimum Wages Act inhibit diversification and need drastic overhaul, said J.K. Thomas, president of the United Planters' Association of Southern India. "Even while a plantation commodity is economically unviable, we cannot change over to alternate crop because of the restrictive and archaic laws which have outlived their purpose," he said. It is high time that necessary legal amendments were brought about for allowing tea estates to diversify into other crops like bamboo, jatropha and palm, Thomas told a planters meet in Coonoor.
Two festivals in a single day
Wow! Talk about sensory overload. Here is how this reviewer's day went Saturday: 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., the Japan Festival in Saginaw, at the Japanese Tea House & Garden, where we found a centrally located tree stump with a built-in back rest. Seated there we listened to the awesome Nagata Shachu drum group from Toronto, the elegant Miyabi Japanese harp and bamboo flute ensemble, and the fun-loving (they jumped up and down during one number) White Pine Glee Club of Japanese businessman from Detroit -- all of whom were performing in an area down a slope from that tree stump, on a stage overlooking the water and Ojibway Island. A glance to the left while the music played on revealed Jim Bush and his followers practicing the balletic and peaceful tai chi.
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