-The Hindu Puducherry: Revenue officials from Puducherry rescued 10 persons, including a child, of the Irula community who were employed as bonded labourers in a sugarcane farm in Andhra Pradesh. Senthamilselvan, Bhaskar, Jayamoorthy, Valarmathi, Azhagar, Shekar, Shaktivel, Rani, Kalyani and 5-year-old Vijay, all from Earipakkam near Bahour in Puducherry, were employed in a sugarcane field in Illathur in Andhra Pradesh. Speaking to The Hindu, District Collector S.B. Deepak Kumar said the issue came...

-Frontline In a situation of increasing life expectancy and crumbling traditional support structures, a universal social pension scheme that does not rely on contribution by a person or an employer can help the elderly. INDIA prides itself on being a "young" society, likely to benefit from a demographic dividend as children and young people move into working age groups over the next decade. This optimistic view assumes that society will be able...

The Pension Parishad is holding a dharna in Delhi for the rights of elderly since 26 November. It has demanded that a Universal and Non Contributory Old Age Pension System should be established with a minimum dignified amount of monthly pension not less than 50% of minimum wage or Rs 2000/- per month, whichever is higher. Despite several rounds of talk held between the campaign leaders and the Government in...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Centre may make it mandatory that 10% of 'corporate social responsibility' funds are spent on the welfare of elderly persons and effect a ten-fold hike in the old-age pension, in what is likely to be a new focus on senior citizens in view of their rapidly growing numbers and challenging living conditions. According to the 'national policy on older persons' to be unveiled soon, the...

-Down to Earth India is among the world's 83 countries which do not meet the minimum requirement of having 22.8 healthcare workers for every10,000 persons A World Health Organization (WHO) report, recently released in Brazil, says that nearly 83 per cent of physicians in India are males. The report, titled "A Universal Truth: No Health Without a Workforce", released at the Third Global Forum on Human Resources for Health, blames the shockingly...