The two day 43rd Session of the Indian Labour Conference (ILC), the apex national tripartite body that discusses key issues affecting labour and employment and provides policy perspectives and recommendations, concluded in New Delhi today. The Conference was inaugurated by Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh on Tuesday 23rd November 2010. Senior level representatives of the three pillars of the tripartism, Trade Unions, Employers’ Associations and Government, participated in the deliberations...
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Unique facility, or recipe for trouble? by Jean Drèze
It is quite likely that a few weeks from now someone will be knocking at your doors and asking for your fingerprints. If you agree, your fingerprints will enter a national database, along with personal characteristics (age, sex, occupation, and so on) that have already been collected from you, unless you were missed in the “Census household listing” earlier this year. The purpose of this exercise is to build the National...
More »Towards a Comprehensive Food Security Bill for All by Dipa Sinha
The NAC proposals for the food security bill are narrow and lack in vision. What is needed is a comprehensive bill with universalisation of PDS and a focus on child malnutrition. There was much excitement when food security became one of the issues in the manifestos of most major political parties in the run up to the 2009 General Elections. With burgeoning food stocks, double-digit food inflation, stagnant malnutrition rates, declining...
More »‘9.4% unemployed, agriculture accounts for less than half of all jobs’ by Amitav Ranjan
A first-ever survey by the Labour Bureau under the Union Ministry of Labour has shown that chronic unemployment — being jobless for more than six months — in India for 2009-10 stands at 9.4 per cent of the population, more than thrice the 2.8 per cent estimated by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO). The survey was conducted in 300 districts among the 28 states and union territories with working class...
More »Jean Dreze, Development Economist interviewed by Vaibhav Vats
The Food Security Act was UPA-2’s flagship programme. Jean Dreze, member of the National Advisory Council, has publicly criticised the government. He tells VAIBHAV VATS what’s gone wrong. Much like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in the first term of the United Progressive Alliance, the Food Security Act was its most ambitious social welfare programme. Since discussions on the Act in the National Advisory Council began, its provisions...
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