The National Advisory Council (NAC) headed by Sonia Gandhi has endorsed the proposal of the Central Employment Guarantee Council (CEGC) that the Minimum Wages Act be adhered to even for workers under MGNREGA. The NAC endorsement came on Saturday during its meeting in New Delhi. Earlier on Saturday, during a meeting of the sub-group of the CEGC, attended by representatives from about six states, the issue of minimum wages being paid...

Expressing 'deep distress' over the 'shameful practice of manual scavenging' in the country, the National Advisory Council, headed by Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, Saturday asked the government to 'fully abolish' it by the end of 2012. It observed that despite the practice of employing scavengers being declared an offence, no one has been punished for it. The issue is seen as 'an issue of sanitation than of issue of human dignity,'...

Eminent economist and Vice-Chairman of the Kerala State Planning Board Prabhat Patnaik said on Saturday that the euphoria in official circles over financial inclusion has risen because of the “systematic scaling down of institutional credit to the peasantry and other productive sectors in the last two decades”. Delivering the centenary lecture dedicated to the memory of Prabhat Kar, a pioneer of the trade union movement in the banking industry, Mr....

For the first time, the ongoing Mazdoor Satyagrah at Statue Circle here, brought together various nomadic and marginalised communities in the state on a common platform on Thursday. Representatives from the Kalbeliya, Garia Lohar, Banjara, Kherua and other communities came together, sharing the platform with NREGS workers demanding minimum wages. "These are communities that don't even have an identity card to prove themselves, a proper residential facility, schools for their children or...

The Union government is reneging on its legal obligation to pay minimum wages, even to the most deprived sections of the population, in the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. If anyone wants to study the capacity of India's policymakers to turn a progressive piece of legislation upside down, the wage policy under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is a good place to...