The International Labour Organisation has done well to include a draft convention on decent work for domestic workers in the agenda for the 100th session of the International Labour Conference, scheduled for June. For centuries the domestic workers have lived along the margins of the international workforce. Well-documented reports by the ILO and other organisations point to the universality of their woes. Entirely informal in nature, domestic work, at its...

This article documents and then examines the various benefits that, it is claimed, will flow from linking the Unique Identity number with the public distribution system and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. It filters the unfounded claims, which arise from a poor understanding of how the PDS and NREGS function, from the genuine ones. On the latter, there are several demanding conditions that need to be met in order...

Since Cairo took to the streets, there is one question that comes up repeatedly in India. How have we been saved from such anarchy, in spite of our faltering democracy? True, Egypt's growth, between 5% and 7%, has been less spectacular than ours. But its per capita income swelled from $587 in 1981 to $1461 in 2001. Even its deficit as a percentage of GDP has fallen from 10.2% in...

Citing various irregularities in the implementation of Food for Work Scheme under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today strongly advocated cash subsidy as a better option. ''If people are to be helped through cash, it would avoid diversion of the commodity or any other product meant for them,'' Mr Kumar said in an informal interaction with Members of the Indian Women's Press Corps...

Even though the Central Government agreed to link the wages paid under MG-NREGA to the Consumer Price Index for Agricultural Labourers (CPIAL), it shied away from paying statutory minimum wages in various states of India. Their logic for this: Lack of clarity on who will bear the extra financial burden—the Centre or the states? A letter from the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to UPA and NAC Chairperson Sonia Gandhi dated 31...