-The Telegraph   The Sonia-Gandhi headed National Advisory Council will prod the government to bring a law to protect unorganised retail sector workers as it brings foreign direct investment into multi-brand retail. Sonia, the council chairperson and the Congress chief, showed the green flag to the government on FDI in retail. The NAC in 2005 had drafted the unorganised sector workers’ social security bill that proposed a national authority to oversee the implementation of...

-The Business Standard   Vimla Devi is a committed anganwadi worker (AWW) in a remote village in Uttar Pradesh, the most populated state of India. Anganwadi is a village level institution under Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), one of the most talked about flagship programmes of the Indian Government. She is also the weakest link in a critical programme, which is underfunded, says Shantanu Gupta in the first of field-data reports, the...

With deep pockets and international sourcing capabilities, global retail chains will outcompete domestic players, displace jobs, and undermine livelihoods. In predictable fashion, the Manmohan Singh government chose to ignore voices of opposition and implement its agenda of permitting foreign investment in the retail trade. While Parliament was in session, the Cabinet met to approve the hitherto prohibited foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail, with a cap of 51 per cent on...

-The Hindu   The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has issued a notice to the Madhya Pradesh Chief Secretary, returnable with a report in six weeks, on allegation that 40 labourers were not traceable after heavy cranes collapsed at an under-construction cement factory in Narsingarh village in Damoh district. The NHRC was acting based on media reports. The reports said that about 300 labourers, mostly from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, were working at...

-The Indian Express   They had come to impart lessons on governance, but Nandan Nilekani and Ashis Nandy were forced to end their speeches abruptly at a Youth Congress convention here by impatient cadres who were more keen to listen to Rahul Gandhi. Nandy, renowned political psychologist, and Nilekani, Chairman of the new Unique Identification Authority of India, were the two non-political speakers invited to the convention to share their experiences in governance...