The United Nations labour agency warned in a new study that efforts to eliminate the worst forms of child labour are waning and called for a “re-energized” global campaign to end the scourge. The Global Report on Child Labour, released today, assessed progress made so far and highlighted the challenges that remain if the goal of eliminating the worst forms of child labour by the target date of 2016 is...

Amid growing concerns over the impact of the economic downturn, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has warned that efforts to eliminate the worst forms of child labour have slowed down and called for a “re-energised” global campaign to end the practice. In its global report on child labour, the ILO said the global number of child labourers had declined from 222 million to 215 million, or 3 per cent, over the...

Child labourers may be declining in sheer numbers yet more children are at work in the Asia-Pacific region than the rest of the world combined. A global report has noted that while there was a 26% decline in the number of children employed (between the age group of 5-14 years) from 122.3 million to 96.4 million across the world, but in absolute terms, Asia-Pacific region had the most child labourers...

At a time when the world celebrates Mother's Day, it turns out that India scores poorly among the middle-income countries when it comes to health care and well-being of mothers. The country is ranked 73 in the list of 77 nations rated for the "best place to be a mother", according to a report by child rights organisation 'Save the Children'. What is more shocking in the 'State of the...

Could the Great Indian Middle Class be the Great Indian Mythical Class? A proposed new international definition of what constitutes the middle class in a developing country has thrown up a startling conclusion by global standards, India has no middle class. Noted economist Nancy Birdsall, president of the Center for Global Development, has proposed a new definition of the middle class for developing countries in a forthcoming World Bank publication,...