Two committees of the labour ministry on Wednesday proposed to double the annual 100 days of work guaranteed to the rural poor by India’s marquee welfare programme, but the ministry may pare the suggested increase before putting it up to the cabinet for approval. The provision to provide work for 100 days to at least one member of every rural family under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS)...

The two day 43rd Session of the Indian Labour Conference (ILC), the apex national tripartite body that discusses key issues affecting labour and employment and provides policy perspectives and recommendations, concluded in New Delhi today. The Conference was inaugurated by Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh on Tuesday 23rd November 2010. Senior level representatives of the three pillars of the tripartism, Trade Unions, Employers’ Associations and Government, participated in the deliberations...

It is quite likely that a few weeks from now someone will be knocking at your doors and asking for your fingerprints. If you agree, your fingerprints will enter a national database, along with personal characteristics (age, sex, occupation, and so on) that have already been collected from you, unless you were missed in the “Census household listing” earlier this year. The purpose of this exercise is to build the National...

The Madras High Court on Wednesday directed the Secretary, Municipal Administration and Water Supply (MAWS) department, and the Chairman-cum-Managing Director of the Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (CMWSSB), to appear in person before the court on December 6 in a matter relating to manual scavenging. The First Bench comprising Chief Justice M.Y.Eqbal and Justice T.S.Sivagnanam passed the order on an additional affidavit in a contempt petition filed by A.Narayanan...

Acknowledging that some labour laws have not yielded the desired results, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said there is a need to revisit some of them which have hurt the growth of employment. "We have enacted several progressive labour laws since independence and some even before that. But it appears that not all these laws have had the intended good effects that we would like to see on the ground," he...