The recommendations of the Planning Commission’s High Level Expert Group on Access to Universal Healthcare are significant because they make explicit the need to contextualise health within the rights. However, the problem with the report is that it does not ask why many of the same recommendations that were made by previous committees have not been implemented. The HLEG neither recognises the problems, constraints and compulsions at the national, state...

-PTI Assam government has prepared a draft proposal to revise minimum wages for workers and employees engaged under NREGA under the relevant provisions of Minimum Wages Act, 1948. The minimum rates of wages fixed for different categories are Rs 208 per day for skilled work/clerical work and Rs 150 per day for semi-skilled/unskilled supervisory work, said an official release here today. A minumum rate of Rs 130 per day was proposed...

-AP   Efforts by India and the European Union to strengthen trade are threatening India's ability to deliver lifesaving medicines to the world's poorest, analysts say as the two sides push through protracted negotiations on a free-trade pact.  India's prime minister and top EU officials are hoping their summit Friday in New Delhi helps move beyond disagreements over issues like European labor market limits and Indian duties on cars.  But health industry workers and...

World Bank arm finances polluting steel mill in Jharkhand As the train slowly approaches Jamshedpur town in Jharkhand, the sky begins to turn reddish. It is because of the thick red dust emanating from an industrial unit, surrounded by heaps of industrial solid waste comprising unburnt coal char and flyash. The unit is a medium-scale iron and steel mill belonging to conglomerate Usha Martin. Spread over 120 hectares, the mill became operational...

-The Times of India A report prepared by a few NGOs on child labour in Rajasthan has claimed that women working in mining or stone crushing units often give opium to their infants to keep them quiet while they are working. "Many women bring their infants to the work site if they have no other childcare arrangement. It is not uncommon for mothers to give their infants opium to keep them quiet...