Two committees of the labour ministry on Wednesday proposed to double the annual 100 days of work guaranteed to the rural poor by India’s marquee welfare programme, but the ministry may pare the suggested increase before putting it up to the cabinet for approval. The provision to provide work for 100 days to at least one member of every rural family under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS)...

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...

Acknowledging that some labour laws have not yielded the desired results, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said there is a need to revisit some of them which have hurt the growth of employment. "We have enacted several progressive labour laws since independence and some even before that. But it appears that not all these laws have had the intended good effects that we would like to see on the ground," he...

A newly e-literate village paanwala's obsession with Google has blown the lid off a unique NREGS scam in Porbandar. The motley bunch of beneficiaries include affluent NRIs, doctors, government officials, teachers and well-off farmers — all shown as unemployed village labourers holding NREGS job cards. So far, the money siphoned off comes to nearly Rs 1 crore. On paper, there are 963 NREGS job cardholders at Kotda village in Kutiyana taluka...

The recently published survey of employment and unemployment in India, conducted in 300 districts across the country, shows once again that without a reform of India’s archaic labour laws, the share of salaried employed will continue to remain low. The employment-unemployment survey was conducted by the Labour Bureau of the Union Ministry of Labour and Employment. Public attention has largely focused on the unemployment number that the survey threw up....