Rolling out a slew of measures for the working class in 2010, the government effected key reforms in some labour acts while also raising the annual rate of returns on employee provident funds to 9.5 per cent. The steps came as the government also unveiled the draft national policy on employment with suggestions of launching of a employment guarantee scheme in urban areas on the lines of NREGA. It amended the Payment...

The economy shows consistent signs of growth. The challenge in the new year is to make development more equitable and broad-based… 2010 was a year of relief that soon grew into despondency. We were relieved that India had pulled out of the deepest post-War recession relatively unscathed. The soundness of its cautious macro-economic management was underlined once again and the US economy is also looking like getting slowly back on...

West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya has courted another controversy by remarking on child labour. "We can't ask them to stop work because that will affect their families' source of income." The West Bengal Chief Minister is courting controversy with a statement saying it is not practical to ask children to stop working - this four years after child labour was officially banned across India. The best that can be done he...

The sentencing of Dr. Binayak Sen involves unverified charges, and unreasonable and unconstitutional findings. The constitutional validity of the charges of sedition and conspiracy that were used to implicate rights activists such as Binayak Sen merely for their anti-establishment political thoughts needs to be challenged. The action ridicules the constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression. The sections of the Indian Penal Code that deal with “conspiracy to wage war against the government”...

Some 10 lakh to 30 lakh migrant labourers take up skilled or semi-skilled work in Kerala. THE State Bank of India has a branch near the Raj Bhavan in Thiruvananthapuram, in a by-lane on the avenue leading to the Kowdiar Palace, the residence of the former maharajas of Travancore. It is a cosy little place on the first floor of a nondescript building, and the clientele includes the rich and...