-PTI Jharkhand government today promised to pay Unemployment Allowance for job card holders for MGNREGA scheme if they fall short of getting 100 days work in a year. Deputy Chief Minister Sudesh Mahto told the state assembly that allowance would be paid to those falling short of the guaranteed mandays. The assurance came after RJD MLA Annapurna Devi raised the issue in the question hour. ...

-The Times of India   In what is a first in Andhra Pradesh, 101 workers in Medak district have been awarded Unemployment Allowance to the tune of Rs 2 lakh for having been denied work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). The award is being seen as an assertion of wage earners' rights under the Act as this is the first time that they have earned compensation for not...

The government may soon have to shell out an Unemployment Allowance if it fails to provide jobs to wage seekers under the flagship Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). “The MGNREGA software will automatically generate the pay order for payment of Unemployment Allowance to the wage seekers, whose demand for work is not met within 15 days,” said a report of a high-level committee chaired by Plan panel member...

It is getting harder for jobseekers to return to gainful employment and for new entrants to find adequate jobs, says the ILO. THERE is little in the International Labour Organisation's (ILO) annual projection of job growth to cheer about. The year 2012 has been described as a year of stark reality. A third of the global workforce is currently unemployed or poor; that is, 200 million members of the 3.3-billion-strong global...

-The Telegraph   Sonia Gandhi decried corruption in the rural jobs scheme as a “crime against the poor”, the words coming on a day the Supreme Court cancelled over 100 graft-tainted 2G licences. “We cannot ignore cases of corruption in this scheme. Corruption in MGNREGA is a crime against the poor people,” the Congress chief said at a programme organised here to celebrate the sixth anniversary of the scheme. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh...