-The Hindu   They had sought inter alia universal social security cover for both organised and unorganised sectors Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday said some of the demands raised by the various central trade unions, for which they organised a nationwide general strike for two days in February, were in advanced stage of consideration of the government. Those demands include universal social security cover for workers in both organised and unorganised sectors and...

Guess what is the total percentage of dalit or tribal members in the boards of big Indian private and public sector companies listed on the stock exchange? Well, shocking as it might be, the real count is nearly zero. A fresh study conducted by D Ajit, Han Donker and Ravi Saxena reveals that at a time when the issues of ethnic and racial inequalities is being discussed all over the world,...

-The Times of India Some 20 months after hotly contesting data on UPA-1's "jobless growth", the government has admitted to lack of substantial increase in employment between 2004-05 and 2009-2010, with the self-employed workforce shrinking from 56.4% to 50.7% of the total workforce. In absolute numbers, the self-employed decreased from 258.4 million to 232.7 million in this period while regular salaried workers rose from 69.7 million to 75.1 million. The ranks of...

KEY TRENDS   • According to National Sample Survey report no. 583: Persons with Disabilities in India, the percentage of persons with disability who received aid/help from Government was 21.8 percent, 1.8 percent received aid/help from organisation other than Government and another 76.4 percent did not receive aid/ help *8   • As per National Family Health Survey-4 (NFHS-4), the Under-five Mortality Rate (U5MR) was 57.2 per 1,000 live births (for the non-STs it was 38.5)...

-The Hindu     The shortened lifespan of the quarry workers of Uttar Pradesh is spent breaking stones and residing among the pollution- laden boulders Mired with sandy roads and rocky terrain, the landscape in south-western Allahabad creates a remarkable mirage under the blue sky. Some of the larger rocks here have sizeable craters formed in them -- a sign of their depletion over time, by an activity that is hazardous yet critical to the...