Government proposes to provide basic insurance coverage to an estimated 43 crore unorganized workers Furthering the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s objective of inclusive growth, the National Advisory Council (NAC) headed by Congress president Sonia Gandhi will discuss ways of bringing India’s unorganized workers under the social security net in its meeting on 29 November. A new NAC working group on social security is working on draft recommendations that will seek to...

It will be offered as National Health Package for all common conditions Strongly recommending a re-configuration of the entire health system where the government will have a major role to play, a high level expert group on Universal Health Coverage (UHC) has proposed making health care an entitlement to every citizen. The group suggested that health care be offered as a National Health Package (NHP) covering all common conditions and high-impact health...

-The Times of India   The Union Cabinet on Thursday cleared setting up a national level social security fund for unorganized workers. The proposed National Social Security Fund will have an initial corpus of Rs 1,000 crore and will benefit 43.3 crore workers in the unorganized sector. Unorganized workers form the most significant part of total workers in the country and suffer from cycles of employment and absence of social security...

The Supreme Court on Friday appeared doubtful about pressing the government to give cash “incentives” under a centrally sponsored scheme to poor women pregnant from child marriages, saying this may be seen as “encouraging” the social crime. “If Government of India gives incentives, will it not mean that it is encouraging child marriages.... We cannot give approval to child marriages,” a Bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma observed. The...

A recent ILO report focusses on the discrimination in employment opportunities and remuneration and wants governments to act. IN recent years, one of the predominant concerns of international organisations, especially those that have a “rights” perspective, has been the impact of the global downturn on various vulnerable sections across the world. Notwithstanding the fact that many countries have signed and ratified conventions of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and are...