Recognising job creation for the youth as the foremost challenge for the economy, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday announced a comprehensive Prime Minister's package to facilitate the employment and skilling of 41 million youth with a central outlay of Rs 2 trillion over the next five-year period. The package will consist of five schemes and initiatives - three focused on jobs and two on skilling.
The United Progressive Alliance government has made it clear to states that it will not permit them any relaxation in labour laws in special economic zones, petrochemical hubs and industrial parks such as easing norms for hiring and firing and employment of women and restricting union activity, among others. Over the last two weeks, at least three state governments have seen their proposals for relaxing labour laws in duty-free areas being rejected by the Centre.
Indian companies struggle in face of a set of common challenges related to logistics, labour regulations, tax and tariff policy
He requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make an announcement that the farm loans would be waived, while a mechanism for the same could be worked out later.
The tribal communities, asserting their rights under the Forest Rights Act, are now planning to gather in Delhi to demand "justice" for their livelihoods and traditions that are closely linked to the forests.
Gaps in labour legislation and India's reluctance to ratify two ILO conventions are stoking disputes over trade union recognition between managements and workers.
The decision to go for such a pact was taken at a meeting between European Union Foreign Affairs Minister Baroness Catherine Asthon and Overseas Indian Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi.
Hyundai said its production was not impacted because of the labour problem at the vendor's factory.
Despite the Shiv Sena deciding to support the two-day trade union strike from Wednesday, the city enjoyed normal functioning of transport, thanks to Hind Mazdoor Sabha president Sharad Rao's decision not to participate.
The reservation would include a 10 per cent horizontal quota for Agniveers in the posts of constable, mining guard, forest guard, jail warden, and special police officers.
The rest 25% would be paid to the subscriber at the age of 58.
'India's top companies currently lack the organisational wherewithal to hire and train 2 million interns annually, given their current scale of operations and existing employee base.'
The unions, CITU, AITUC, BMS, INTUC, HMC, AUITUC, TUCC, AICCTU and UTUC demanded that the government stop disinvestment of public sector units and bring in a lagislation to protect workers of unorganised sector.
At present, someone short of the retirement age can completely withdraw the PF money.
'The Indian private sector knows how to build and run educational organisations, what is needed is a large dose of removal of restrictions.' 'Government restrictions hold back universities in India from launching medical schools,' argue Ajay Shah and Vijay Kelkar.
Few finance ministers announce any taxation measure that could upset the stock market. Ms Sitharaman decided to take that risk, observes A K Bhattacharya.
The Bharti Kisan Union (Ekta Ugrahan) will on Saturday hold dharnas outside the residences of three senior Bharatiya Janata Party leaders in Punjab on the fifth day of the farmers' protest over their various demands, including a legal guarantee for a minimum support price (MSP).
Six decades and more later, we are now captives of our identities. Every poll is based on elaborate calculations of electability of candidates on the basis of their castes and other narrow definers. That, along with voter promiscuity, is what defines our political culture, which remains stubbornly resistant to any change, asserts Shreekant Sambrani.
There has been demand to hike the PF interest rate to 8.90 per cent.
The views of the trade unions who met the finance minister on Wednesday, run contrary to the demands of India Inc, which called for disinvestment of public sector enterprises to fund the widening fiscal deficit. They also suggested increasing corporate tax rate so that more money can be transferred from the rich to the poor.
It aims at tackling issues such as child labour, mistreatment of workers, and denial of basic wages, among others. There will also be penalties for non-compliance.
Having lost their case in the Bombay High Court (HC) against deregistration of their union, Jet Airways pilots plan to go to an industrial tribunal.
Trade unions reiterate the call for countrywide general strike on September 2 against the "anti-worker and anti-people policies" of the government.
Pressure is mounting on Honda Motorcycle and Scooters India, India's fourth biggest two-wheeler maker by volume, to resume normal supplies of scooters and motorcycles to its dealers, who are forced to ask customers to wait for up to four-five months for delivery.
The Vasundhara Raje government's initiatives mark a critical step forward in labour law reforms.
'The government should come back as a job creator as it did in the 1960s and the 1970s.'
About a million railway employees participated in the strike ballot of NFIR. In December, 800,000 employees participated in the strike ballot conducted by another leading union, the All India Railwaymen Federation, with 96 per cent voting in favour of a strike.
Workers had stopped production lines to protest a delay in salary hikes after 10 months of negotiations.
It's time we dispensed with the paper trail and shifted all labour law paper, workflows and permissions online.
The strike was supposed to affect about 23 million passengers.
India's stiff labour laws were one key issue that Apple CEO Tim Cook discussed with Prime Minister Modi on his recent visit.
Using the Mahabharat reference as a leitmotif, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Monday claimed that an atmosphere of fear prevails all around with a group of six trapping the entire country in a 'chakravyuh' he promised would be broken by the INDIA bloc.
About 900 employees would lose their jobs following the suspension of operations at the plant.
The proposed changes to the child labour law to allow children and adolescents to work for their families would be most retrograde and regressive, say Shinzani Jain and Paranjoy Guha Thakurta.
Jaitley said India needed to grow by additional 1-1.5%.
'The BJP's numbers in this government are almost the same as those enjoyed by the Congress under P V Narasimha Rao when the reform process was kicked off in 1991.' 'As before, the only constraints on the prime minister's actions are internal, not external.' 'They come from his own assessment of the political consequences of any action,' points out Mihir S Sharma.
'The Budget needs to focus more on social welfare schemes.'
Former Union minister Yashwant Sinha, a bitter critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi regime, on Saturday joined Trinamool Congress days ahead of the high-octane West Bengal assembly polls.
Farmers will march towards Delhi on Tuesday after a meeting with two Union ministers over their demands, including legal guarantee to minimum support price (MSP) for crops, remained inconclusive.
