As the Centre faces multiple hurdles, BJP-governed states such as Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat have swiftly moved in to usher in radical reforms as they aim to take a larger share of the FDI pie.
India's services sector activity fell to a 10-month low in September as new businesses, international sales and output growth moderated, a monthly survey said on Friday. The seasonally adjusted HSBC India Services Business Activity Index fell from 60.9 in August to 57.7 in September, indicating that though the output registered an increase, the pace of growth was the slowest since November 2023. In the Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) parlance, a print above 50 means expansion, while a score below 50 denotes contraction.
Prez assent to Gujarat labour law with contentious provisions.
Following the rescue of a minor domestic help from her house, the Maharashtra Government on Tuesday filed cases against Bollywood actress Suchita Krishnamoorthi.
He said the bill will be taken up for discussion in the next cabinet meeting to clear the doubts.
The norms, say industry experts, are not sufficient to weed out fly-by-night contractors.
ILO acts upon a plea by 10 central trade unions objecting to the ordinances proposed to temporarily scrap labour laws in Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, along with executive orders issued by at least 10 states to increase the daily working limit to 12 hours from eight hours, along with other labour law changes.
E-commerce firm Amazon India has announced the creation of over 110,000 seasonal job opportunities across its operations network as it prepares to serve millions of customers throughout India during the upcoming festival season. These positions include both direct and indirect roles in cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Lucknow, and Chennai, among others. Notably, Amazon has hired thousands of women and nearly 1,900 individuals with disabilities into its existing network.
Unincorporated enterprises in the manufacturing sector lost nearly 1.8 million establishments and shed 5.4 million jobs between July 2015-June 2016 and October 2022-September 2023, an analysis of the fact sheet on 'Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises (ASUSE)' and the comparable 73rd round survey in 2015-16 by the National Statistical Office (NSO) showed. An estimated 17.82 million unincorporated enterprises operated in the manufacturing sector in October 2022-September 2023, nearly 9.3 per cent down from 19.7 million unincorporated enterprises in July 2015- June 2016.
Incidence of 'vulnerable employment' is highest in South Asia, including India, with 580 million people in the region falling under the category, says the annual Global Employment Trends report of the International Labour Organisation.
Calling the Budget 2018 'anti-labour', the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh will observe February 20 as a 'black day'.
Bringing to the fore the ugly face of 'forced labour' in India, a new study by the International Labour Organisation has said bonded labourers often lose their freedom to choose employment due to lack of transparency in wage system and continue to work for unlimited period.
Cabinet may take up amendments to 3 laws on Wednesday; but no relaxed retrenchment norms yet.
Industry body CII on Thursday made a case for pushing reforms in sectors like land, labour, and agriculture by the Modi 3.0 government to accelerate economic growth, which is estimated to be around 8 per cent in the current financial year. CII president Sanjiv Puri said a lot of policy interventions in the past have put the economy on "a much stronger wicket". "The growth rate is poised to touch 8 per cent during the current year, marking the fourth consecutive year of above 7 per cent + growth.
'The noise that we are hearing is because the five big IT players are not hiring significantly.'
'The overwhelming evidence from various studies and reports indicates that the current work culture in the IT sector, characterised by excessive hours, has severe consequences for health, productivity, and overall quality of life.'
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.
The attack, which claimed the lives of seven individuals, including a local doctor and two labourers from Bihar, has raised concerns about the unreported trend of local youths joining terrorist groups in Kashmir during this period.
With jobs vanishing by the thousands as a fall-out of the economic downturn, the Economic Survey on Wednesday asked the government to review labour laws for pushing growth in employee-intensive sectors.
Eight construction labourers abducted by Maoists from Bihar's Jamui district were released on early Wednesday, police said.
President Pranab Mukherjee on Friday gave his assent to Rajasthan's amendment to three laws -- the Factories Act, Industrial Dispute Act and Contract Labour Act.
Dipak Brahma, a resident of Dhantola Mandaria, a forest village in Kokrajhar district, had recently returned from Gujarat, where he worked as a labourer. He was jobless and finding it hard to support his family, according to an official of an NGO working against human trafficking.
Ten central trade unions on Friday gave a call for a nationwide strike on May 22 to protest against the suspension of labour laws by some states during the lockdown period, and also decided to take the matter to International Labour Organization (ILO). "The joint platform of Central Trade Unions (CTUs) in their meeting held on May 14 , 2020 took note of the critical situation for the working people in the country during the lockdown period and decided to enhance united actions to meet the challenge," a joint statement by 10 CTUs said.
V V Giri National Labour Institute, NOIDA invites applications from young teachers and researchers for a course on Qualitative Methods in Labour Research.
However, there will be no inter-state movement of workers during the lockdown, which has been extended till May 3.
Although India is a labour-surplus economy with an unlimited number of workers willing to work at a subsistence wage a paradoxical feature of the labour market is the rising incidence of scarcity or shortages amid a situation of potential plenty.
India Inc on Thursday pitched for lowering income tax burden on common man, increase in capital expenditure, and firm steps to contain food inflation in their nearly two-hour long interaction with finance minister Nirmala Shitharaman ahead of the Union Budget. During pre-Budget consultation with Sitharaman, the industry leaders and associations also urged the government to focus more on infrastructure development with a view to maintaining the economic growth momentum. The industry leaders also laid stress on boosting the MSME (micro, small, and medium enterprises) sector, considered a backbone of the Indian economy and main employment generator.
Child labour refers to the employment of children at regular and sustained labour.
Just days after Kailash Satyarthi won the Nobel Peace Prize for his campaigns against child labour, photographs captured barefoot children clearing waste from the Yamuna. We take a look at the progress or lack of it on the issue of child rights.
In her Budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday underlined the need for collaboration between the Centre and states to take up the next-generation reforms covering land, labour, capital and entrepreneurship. As far as revenue share goes, the government has projected to give about 32.5 per cent of central taxes to states during FY25, against the 15th Finance Commission's recommendation of 41 per cent, according to the Union Budget estimate.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's Budget proposals lay out a comprehensive road map for transforming India into a developed nation, focusing on key priorities that aim to generate ample opportunities for all citizens in "Viksit Bharat". It sets the stage for sustained economic growth, social development, and technological advancement.
The Labour government in the UK has cleared the decks for a 500 million grant to Tata Steel, paving the way for decarbonisation of the company's British business and a sustainable financial future. In a statement, Tata Steel said that it has signed a 500 million Grant Funding Agreement (GFA) with the UK government, allowing it to "proceed at pace with the project to install a state-of-the-art electric arc furnace (EAF) at the Port Talbot steelworks in Wales". This is part of the 1.25 billion green steel project in Port Talbot, of which Tata Steel's investment is to the tune of 750 million.
Contract workers are paid much less than regular workers. This year's Economic Survey estimates wages are on an average 20 times higher in the formal sector than in the informal sector. Arindam Majumder reports.
The generation of quality jobs and skill development should be the focal point, cutting across ministries and departments, asserts Nivedita Mookerji.
'Everything about farming is enjoyable and relaxing.'
The Centre is confident of meeting employment creation target of ten million jobs during the current financial year, Union Labour Secretary P D Shenoy said.
An increase in the farmer income support scheme PM Kisan Nidhi, the introduction of a 'robot tax' to fund reskilling of people who lose their jobs to artificial intelligence (AI), and a reduced income-tax (I-T) to bring relief to the middle classes - these are some of the items in the Budget wish list submitted by Sangh Parivar affiliates to Finance Minister (FM) Nirmala Sitharaman. Representatives of the affiliates of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), such as the farmer organisation Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (BKS); trade union Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS); Laghu Udyog Bharati, which works for micro and small industries; and Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM), which works on economic and policy issues, met the FM and other officials over the last couple of weeks as part of the pre-Budget consultations.
Labour law changes for three years may not be enough as it takes a couple of years for factories to build and operations at a proper scale start only in the third or fourth year.
