Workers who found jobs through temporary employment agencies were among the first to find themselves out of work as a result of the global financial and economic crises, according to a new United Nations report released today. The International Labour Organization (ILO) report noted that the largest number of temporary job losses was recorded in the manufacturing sector of developed countries, especially in the car industry. Spotlighting Germany, where between...

The government has decided to release data for manufactured goods in the wholesale price index (WPI) with a monthly frequency, even as data on primary goods and fuels would continue to be released every week. Further, the revamped WPI would cover about 900 items instead of 435 at present, and the base year is being brought forward from 1993-94 to 2004-05. These changes would make the price index more reliable...

Despite the government’s efforts to reduce maternal deaths by encouraging deliveries at health centres, the system continues to fail poor women. I gave birth in the developing world, in South Africa, to be precise. South Africa was in the spotlight recently when a government-commissioned report showed a 20 per cent increase in the number of deaths from pregnancy-related causes between 2005 and 2007 over the previous three-year period. The report...

The recession is a promising moment to expand NREGA with greater emphasis on building social capital in a big way.  Soon after assuming office, the first UPA government took an impressive step for the alleviation of rural poverty by launching the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. It was, indeed, a wise move to insulate the programme from the vicissitudes of electoral politics by enacting the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act...

Right to Information Act completes four years of its enactment  Democratic struggle is an integral part of social change, says Chief Information Commissioner ‘Transparency and accountability are integral to the success of Right to Information’ When Mazloom Nadaf was sanctioned Rs.25,000 by the gram panchayat under the Indira Niwas Yojana, he knew little of the struggle that awaited him. This 70-year-old rickshaw puller from Bihar’s Madhubani district begged and pleaded...