The two day 43rd Session of the Indian Labour Conference (ILC), the apex national tripartite body that discusses key issues affecting labour and employment and provides policy perspectives and recommendations, concluded in New Delhi today. The Conference was inaugurated by Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh on Tuesday 23rd November 2010. Senior level representatives of the three pillars of the tripartism, Trade Unions, Employers’ Associations and Government, participated in the deliberations...

Chief minister Arjun Munda is all set to revive the Jharkhand State Planning Board — first formed during his second innings as head of state — to assist his government in drawing up development plans based on scientific assessment of available resources. The move comes close on the heels of the government setting up a three-member panel, headed by noted economist Bibek Debroy, to prepare the state’s development report. Speaking to The...

A new United Nations report shows for the first time how poor health is linked to poverty in cities and calls on policymakers to identify those that need the most help and target measures to improve their well-being. The report, entitled “Hidden Cities: unmasking and overcoming health inequities in urban settings,” was launched today in Kobe, Japan, where leaders from governments, academia, media and non-governmental organizations have been meeting for the...

A lot has been said and written about the visit of Barack Obama, the President of USA to India. The corporate media was in the usual over-enthusiastic drive to bring to its readers and viewers all minute details about his visit from where he stayed and what he ate to how many warships, planes and cars accompanied him and how a whopping $200 million was spent per day for the...

At least 29 of the 66 migrants crushed to death in east Delhi when a building collapsed on Monday night hailed from Bengal. The figure signposts the exodus of an abandoned generation and the inability of a state to retain its young or equip them for a better life elsewhere. The death of so many Bengalis has brought out in the open troubling issues that policymakers — both in the state...