Thousands of migrants were stranded in places across the country since the lockdown was enforced on March 25, many even attempting to walk home.
According to the EPFO estimates, there would be a surplus of Rs 151.67 crore after providing 8.65 per cent rate of interest for 2018-19 on EPF.
'Life has been full of rewards, full of sadness.'
'The Modi government must create conditions to integrate millions into the rural economy as many migrants are certainly not going to return to live an undignified life,' notes Ramesh Menon.
The new cabinet, predictably, has a sizeable number of Yadavs and Muslims, though members of other sections of the society also find a place.
A decision in this regard was taken in the Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
ESI subscribers to get Covid unemployment allowance within 15 days of claim. Payment will be made into bank account of the insured and Aadhaar will be used for identification.
In the draft rules, among 681 listed professions, armed security guards, supervisors, surveyors, and carpenters (class I) are proposed to be treated as highly skilled professionals; electricians, tailors and drivers are skilled; cooks and cobblers as semi-skilled and dairy coolies, office peons and sweepers as unskilled.
The use of such robots can not only save lives but can also help road construction companies cut down on labour costs.
Lack of skilled labour, among other factors, led to 187,062 vacancies in nine sectors during the first quarter of the current fiscal year, showed the new revamped quarterly employment survey (QES). This accounted for a little over 0.6 per cent of the total jobs given by these establishments till April-June 2021-22. The nine sectors - manufacturing, construction, trade, transport, education, health, accommodation and restaurants, IT/BPOs and financial services - employed 30.8 million people.
The Centre stated in its report that it wanted media houses not to publish the news of COVID-19, without asking the central government authorities, who are assigned to talk to media houses, keeping in view the welfare and benefit of migration labourers and other people due to the pandemic.
Gandhi and his Congress party have been asking the government to shelve its plans on the Central Vista project and give priority to improving the country's medical infrastructure amid the COVID-19 pandemic to save people's lives.
Nangiohbok Rymbai, a graduate in economics who works as a daily wage labourer in Shillong, tells Rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar what he would like to see in Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's Budget.
British lawmakers will debate the issue of press freedom and safety of protesters in India next Monday in response to an e-petition which had crossed the 100,000-signature threshold required for such a debate, the House of Commons Petitions Committee confirmed on Wednesday.
The central government has asked public sector undertakings to dissuade their employees from participating in the bandh.
The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation's apex decision making body, the Central Board of Trustees, had decided to provide 8.65 per cent rate of interest on EPF deposits last December.
India is looking at near close to double-digit growth this year and the country will be one of the fastest-growing economies, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said. The minister also emphasised that she expects the economic growth next year to be in the range of 7.5-8.5 per cent, which will be sustained for the next decade.
A bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan, Sanjay Kishan Kaul and M R Shah said industries and employees need each other and they should sit together to arrive at a settlement on the issue of payment of wages.
Currently, industries with up to 100 workers were allowed to do this.
According to the law, the contribution "should not be more than 5 per cent of the amount paid to gig workers. The government is likely to start seeking contribution from gig companies towards the fund from April 1, 2021.
Giving a relief to exporters community, the government on Thursday said it will release Rs 56,027 crore to exporters against pending tax refunds under different incentive schemes for outbound shipments. The amount will be disbursed to more than 45,000 exporters. Briefing the media about the decision, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said that the Rs 56,027 crore, which is being released under various export promotion schemes, is over and above duty remission of Rs 12,454 crore for the Remission of Duties and Taxes on Export Products (RoDTEP) Scheme and Rs 6,946 crore for Rebate of State and Central Levies and Taxes (RoSCTL) Scheme already announced.
The bill to amend payment of gratuity Act in order to double the ceiling of tax-free gratuity to Rs 20 lakh, would soon be placed before the Union Cabinet for approval.
The Centre has allocated Rs 73,000 crore to the rural employment guarantee programme Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act for the next fiscal 2021-22, substantially lower than the actual expenditure of Rs 1.11 lakh crore in the current fiscal which included an additional Rs 40,000 crore for the scheme given by the government in the wake of the pandemic's impact on the economy.
India has called the remarks by foreign leaders on protests by farmers as "ill-informed" and "unwarranted" as the matter pertained to the internal affairs of a democratic country.
The International Olympic Committee on Wednesday confirmed it had received the letter.
Most economists were of the view that the NSSO should release the data, as any move to withhold it will dent the image of country's statistical system.
According to an official statement, in a letter to Goyal, Pawar said that the migrant workers, stranded in different parts of Maharashtra, may step out in big numbers to return to their states when the train services resume after the lockdown is lifted. This can lead to law and order problem (with workers coming out in big numbers), he added. To avoid this, the railway ministry should run special trains, he demanded.
While FMCG companies were not barred from carrying out their operations during the 21-day lockdown, since most manufacture staples and essential products, capacity utilisation remained poor, owing to the restricted movement of raw materials, finished goods, and labour.
What some of us think are strong, bold and firm decisions are cruel, harsh and unwanted for others. This is what we need to consider when we look at what has happened with the farm laws, asserts Aakar Patel.
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan announced on Monday that his government will allow India to send a humanitarian shipment of 50,000 metric tonnes of wheat to neighbouring Afghanistan through its territory after finalisation of the transit modalities.
While the number of active COVID-19 cases stood at 7,409, as many as 764 people have been cured and discharged, and one had migrated, it said. Of the total 273 deaths, Maharashtra tops the tally with 127 fatalities, followed by Madhya Pradesh at 36, Gujarat at 22 and Delhi at 19.
The country's textile industry is concentrated in a few pockets of Gujarat and Maharashtra in the west and Tamil Nadu and Karnataka in the south.
The government on Saturday announced a string of measures, including a pension for dependents of those having lost their lives due to COVID-19, among other benefits for the families who lost their earning members to the pandemic.
Thousands of farmers are protesting on various borders of Delhi since November 26, seeking repeal of three farm laws enacted in September.
The top court said it is not satisfied with the efforts of the Centre as well as the states on the issue of registration of workers in unorganised sectors.
If 2019-20 (FY20) was an unusual year for highway construction in India, with the pace of work slowing down for the first time since the Narendra Modi government assumed power in 2014, largely due to the general elections in May and liquidity crunch, the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020-21 (FY21) only made matters worse with lockdowns and labour unavailability. The pace of highway construction in 2021-22 (FY22) has not been able to bulldoze the pandemic barriers in a year marred by two Covid-19 waves - the second at the start of the fiscal year, the third towards the close. With localised lockdowns and restrictions on mobility, highway construction growth in the country has now fallen to a five-year low.
The SOP said priority will be given to compelling cases of in distress, including migrant workers and labourers who have been laid off, short term visa holders faced with expiry of visas, persons with medical emergency/ pregnant women and elderly persons or those required to return to India due to death of family member, and students.
Thackeray said he was in constant touch with the Centre over the issue of running more trains to ferry migrant labourers, stranded due to the coronavirus-enforced lockdown, to their native places.
While some trade union leaders have welcomed the move, industry has opposed it, fearing an increase in its wage bill
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