The Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) has released draft recommendations for a social security package for the country’s unorganized sector, which envisages providing life, disability and health cover, maternity benefits and old-age pension to workers. NAC, in a draft released on 7 March, suggested that the different welfare schemes being run by the ministries of women and child development, health and family welfare, finance and labour and employment should be...
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Gujarat 2002 and Modi’s Misdeeds by Anand Teltumbde
Ten years after the killings in Gujarat, Narendra Modi has neither expressed regret nor has he been held accountable for those mass deaths. Where do we go from here? Anand Teltumbde (tanandraj@gmail.com) is a writer and civil rights activist with the Committee for the Protection of Democratic Rights, Mumbai. Just thinking of it, a shiver runs down my spine. I had my own brush with how the Hindutva gangs carried out the...
More »Digital divide: IT boom in India left women behind, finds study by Himanshi Dhawan
As you scan a busy street or travel on a train, the ubiquitous mobile is everywhere. And yet, one of India's biggest success stories - the use of mobile technology - has reached women only partially. A recent study shows that 12% fewer women own mobiles as compared to men. The gender gap is even higher in internet use with women comprising just 17% of total internet users. Interestingly, 20%...
More »Here’s evidence that NREGA is actually destroying jobs by R Jagannathan
Is the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGA) a poverty buster? Or is it a job destroyer? The answer seems to be both, though the scheme of late, has been bedevilled by corruption and many states have lost their enthusiasm for it, forcing the rural development ministry to revamp the scheme last week (read here about the changes). While the scheme has been attacked for many reasons – bloating rural...
More »NAC, govt review social security plan for unorganized sector by Remya Nair & Anuja
In an indication that the ruling Congress may be looking to evolve a comprehensive social security package ahead of the next general election, the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) has started a consultative process with four central government ministries aimed at linking existing and new schemes for the huge unorganized sector. The plan, according to an NAC member, is to issue one entitlement card to every worker in the unorganized...
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