The first-ever national policy for domestic workers is all set to go to the Cabinet for its approval, entitling them to minimum wages, defined work hours, paid annual and sick leave and Maternity Benefits. The thrust of the policy is to bring domestic workers under the purview of existing labour laws, which would help them avail all the rights and protection available to other workers. According to official estimates, India has...

To plug loopholes in the law on Maternity Benefits, a government panel has suggested an amendment forbidding the sacking of a pregnant employee on any ground.  The Planning Commission's working group which had been asked to review the Maternity Benefit Act 1961 has also recommended increasing the duration of maternity leave, though it did not specify by how days it should be increased.  The group wants the government to incorporate a clause...

One man’s fiscal problem is another man’s lifeline. Trigger happy bureaucrats and economists may love shooting down subsidies because it bloats the fiscal deficit and burdens the government but the simple fact is that in a one billion strong nation, in which nearly one in every three live below the poverty line, one needs an effective and efficient method through which privileged tax payers can support the poor. Last week, finance...

It is disappointing that the government has not taken any steps to provide for the Food Security Bill, which is in Parliament, in this budget. A significant announcement on it was anticipated this year; that would have been the only way to see it roll out in 2012. Now, I think, the government must be bargaining for legal processes to take over, which we know will take some time, before...

The Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) has released draft recommendations for a social security package for the country’s unorganized sector, which envisages providing life, disability and health cover, Maternity Benefits and old-age pension to workers. NAC, in a draft released on 7 March, suggested that the different welfare schemes being run by the ministries of women and child development, health and family welfare, finance and labour and employment should be...