India has witnessed many fiery debates on poverty estimates. Equally contentious has been the issue of inequality. Now a new report on exclusion offers a fresh perspective on poverty, inequality and social justice. (See below a summary of the report) Based on data and knowledge resources available in the public domain, India Exclusion Report 2013-14 highlights the systematic discrimination faced by women, Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), Muslims, persons with...

-International Business Times   Consider this: There are 400 million Indians with no access to workplace benefits, such as social security, health insurance or unemployment insurance, a number higher than the population of the United States and Canada combined, according to a Delhi-based group of economic researchers. So, as the United States grapples with growing income inequality, it takes a country like India to put some of those economic and working realities into...

-The Business Standard   How a law to conserve groundwater led to a better paid and better organised migrant workforce Ludhiana: For some years now, Punjab's fields have lain fallow through the searing dry heat of May; but come June's steamy humidity, small bands of lithe, slender men from Bihar fan out across the waterlogged paddy fields, transplanting rice saplings with fluid efficiency. Bihar's paddy planters have frequented Punjab since the 1960s when rice...

-The Hindu   The children, including girls, pursue studies in local government schools and work in the industry in summer BRAHMAPURAM (KRISHNA, Andhra Pradesh): Scores of children below the age group of 14 are hired by the Kalamkari production units in Pedana as daily wage workers. The children, including girls, who are pursuing studies in local government schools and working in the industry in summer, contribute their mite to the family's income. "I get...

-The Hindu   The World of Work Report 2014 catalogues the impressive strides developing countries are making to catch up with advanced nations. But the International Labour Organisation study also contains important caveats on the cost from continuing sharp inequalities. Per capita income has grown on average by 3.3 per cent per annum in 140 countries over the past three decades, as against 1.8 per cent in the advanced economies. But this...