 Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dairy Roundup. I am Aditya and we're bringing to you a glimpse of some of the most important stories that we report about here at newsclick.in. Over a month ago, the central government announced 10% reservation for economically weaker sections from among the general category candidates in government jobs and educational institutions. All centrally funded educational institutions including IITs, IIMs, central universities, and IITs were collectively added close to 1.5 lakh seats in the new academic session starting July and another 96,000 seats approximately next year to implement the 10% quota. The capacity expansion will cost the government roughly Rs 5,600 crore according to the implementation plan shared by all the central institutions. This financial cost of implementing EWS reservation is much more than the estimate of Rs 4,200 crore initially prepared by the HRD ministry. While the BJP is looking to woo voters ahead of general elections, the ambitious project's implementation is likely to be hit by major roadblocks like infrastructure and staff deficit. It also appears that funding for the implementation may fall short as the interim budget presented earlier this month has embarked only Rs 4,600 crore for the project. The centrally funded institutions have also been facing a cute deficit of teachers for many years. The central universities at present have over 6,000 positions vacant. Major universities like DU, BHU have started depending upon ad hoc teachers to conduct their academic programs. Many academicians believe that despite EWS expansion, the students will be deprived of quality education. Over 2.5 lakh jute mill workers from West Bengal are gearing up for an indefinite strike from March 1, demanding wage revision and implementation of the minimum wages act in the jute industry. The strike across all jute mills in the state is expected to impact over 4.5 million jute crores. The jute sector in West Bengal has not seen any major wage revision since 2011. Workers said they were still being paid a mere of Rs 250 per day. Criticising the government for ignoring workers' concerns, trade union leaders pointed out that the union textiles minister, Smriti Irani, has refused to pay heed to the jute workers' demands when several union representatives met with her. Unions in the jute sector also alleged that the PF trustee boards at the mill level had been forcefully taken over by the ruling party mafia. Air India, the country's national carrier which is struggling to keep afloat, has not paid flying allowance to pilots for December. Flying allowance is paid to a pilot on the basis of the number of flight hours clocked by her in a month and constitutes a major chunk of their total consolidated salary. Two unions of Air India pilots, the Indian Commercial Pilots Association ICPA and Indian Pilots Guild, IPG, have written to the management on February 10, stating that they are working under stressful conditions that have direct implications on flight safety. After Air India was deliberately dunked into debt and made sick by the previous Congress-led United Progressive Alliance regime, UPA, it has consistently been in a situation of dire straits. It has a debt burden of nearly Rs 55,000 crore thanks to mainly, one, the excessive number of aircraft bought under civil aviation minister Praful Patel during UPA-1. Two, the merging of international carrier Air India with the public sector and country's largest domestic airline Indian Airlines. And three, giving away of most lucrative international routes and slots to private carriers. In international news, hundreds of water workers marched in Detroit on February 9 protesting the announcements made by General Motors, GM, of the closure of their plants in massive layoffs. According to Detroit Free Press, on February 4, GM announced its plan to eliminate about 4,000 jobs across North America, including close to 1,300 jobs at the company's Warren Technical Center. The company's decision has been criticized as a plan to maximize profits by increasing the workforce in low-wage countries like Mexico at the expense of its plants in North America. It should be noted that such an announcement was made against the backdrop of Donald Trump's chest thumping about signing a new trade agreement, United States, Mexico-Canada Agreement, USMCA, with Canada and Mexico after enulling the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA. The protest received powerful statements of support from representatives of the Maruti Suzuki workers in India who face framed cases, tea plantation workers in Sri Lanka, and the striking auto parts workers in Matamoros, Mexico. Greetings are also sent from workers in Turkey, Germany, the UK and Australia.