-The Hindu Industry had opposed the move as it may hurt small factories financially New Delhi: The centre is reconsidering a plan to widen the social security net for workers by bringing more factories under the provident fund coverage. The Cabinet Secretariat has pointed out a few contradictions in the Labour Ministry’s proposal to amend the Employees’ Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions Act of 1952, senior labour ministry officials said. The Labour Ministry had...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Joblessness in India is running at a five-year high of 5% of the 15-plus-years work force. Over a third of working people are employed for less than a year and 68% of households are earning up to only Rs 10,000 per month, according to a new employment-unemployment (EU) survey report conducted by the Labour Bureau. Over 7.8 lakh persons in 1.6 lakh households were surveyed across...

-The Indian Express The Centre is pushing and many states are implementing Direct Benefit Transfers – and encountering little political opposition The entire focus on ushering in a direct benefit transfer (DBT) regime for delivering subsidies to the targeted populations has so far centered around cooking gas, and to some extent, on isolated pilot experiments with food subsidy. Agriculture subsidies, especially on inputs other than fertilisers, have largely escaped attention in...

-Hindustan Times New Delhi: Women outnumber men in increasing proportions in India’s rural job scheme, a trend experts call the “feminisation” of the programme. With changes in the labour environment — more men migrating for better wages — more women are working as labourers for additional household income. The scheme, launched in 2006, had less than 20% women in its workforce in the initial years but after a decade, 56% of jobs...

-The Hindu Held to account by the Supreme Court, the Central government is using opaque methods to change the key provisions of the employment guarantee scheme and make it targeted instead of universal. There is a pithy saying in Hindi that the elephant has two sets of teeth, one for show and the other to eat. This seems an apt description of the approach of the Narendra Modi government towards the implementation...