-The Hindu Audits, transparency and citizen-centric accountability need to be a part of fund support and disbursement Every COVID-19 wave in India has brought us face to face with the dire precarity of life and livelihood for India’s vast numbers of unorganised workers, and the inadequate response of the state and society to their plight. The latest global OXFAM inequality report highlights how India’s billionaires have grown dramatically in numbers and wealth,...

-The Hindu Rs. 35,399.40 crore spent from ₹78,521.24 crore collected, Minister tells Lok Sabha in written reply Over half the amount collected in the form of a cess on construction projects to fund welfare schemes for workers has not been utilised so far, the Labour and Employment Ministry informed the Lok Sabha on Thursday. The cess, collected under the Building and Other Construction workers’ Welfare Cess Act, 1996, is supposed to be used...

-Newsclick.in The migrant labourers face absolute hardship and exploitation while working outside their native states and face economic turmoil after returning home, forcing them to leave again. Kolkata/ Baharampore: Samrat Karyi (18) of Madhupur gram panchayat of Coochbihar had gone to Rajasthan to work as a migrant labourer in the construction sector. He boarded the Bikaner Guwahati express to return home with his brother. When he was nearing the Coochbihar Junction, he...

-TheWire.in The recent attack on an RTI activist in Rajasthan's Barmer must be seen within a larger culture of violence in the country, being perpetrated to settle scores while the state says nothing. The Right to Information (RTI) application has long since drawn violence for its use as a tool to disrupt the corrupt status quo in the country and another such incident has recently taken place in Rajasthan. Amra Ram Godara, a...

-PTI/ TheWire.in The National Campaign Committee for Central Legislation on Construction Labour has called the blanket ban on construction 'irrational', adding that the ban ought to be limited to demolition and excavation. New Delhi: A Construction workers’ body has moved the Supreme Court seeking ex-gratia relief schemes for daily workers who will suffer the loss of income due to the sudden complete ban on the sector’s activities imposed by NCR states to...