-Live Mint Recent reports of the employment and unemployment surveys of National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) have confirmed the fear of jobless growth during 2004-2010. This data has led to much debate, but the overwhelming consensus remains that the recent period of high gross domestic product (GDP) growth has not benefited the majority of workers. Although the debate is yet to settle, there have been arguments for looking at the data closely....

The finance ministry is putting shape to a new social security scheme for unorganized sector workers, creating for the first time a safety net for millions of underpaid and overworked people, many of whom living in abject poverty.  The ministry has discussed with the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) and the four state run non-life insurance companies the contours of this scheme that will provide life insurance, health cover and retirement pension...

Government proposes to provide basic insurance coverage to an estimated 43 crore Unorganized Workers Furthering the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s objective of inclusive growth, the National Advisory Council (NAC) headed by Congress president Sonia Gandhi will discuss ways of bringing India’s Unorganized Workers under the social security net in its meeting on 29 November. A new NAC working group on social security is working on draft recommendations that will seek to...

-The Times of India   The Union Cabinet on Thursday cleared setting up a national level social security fund for Unorganized Workers. The proposed National Social Security Fund will have an initial corpus of Rs 1,000 crore and will benefit 43.3 crore workers in the unorganized sector. Unorganized Workers form the most significant part of total workers in the country and suffer from cycles of employment and absence of social security...

The curiosum of a ‘red regime’ with a knack to get re-elected term after term for over more than three decades within the ambit of a full-fledged multi-party democracy has finally disappeared. The Left Front, led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), has not merely lost the poll in West Bengal, it has been made mincemeat of. Its vote share has come down from close to 50 per cent...