Assuming we still have a Modi-led majority government after May 2024, there is no guarantee that reforms will move at anything more than a snail's pace, though we must be thankful even for that, notes R Jagannathan.
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.
From highways connecting once-remote regions to aviation networks carrying millions, India's infrastructure story is one of transformation.
The issue arose after TCS dismissed hundreds of employees in January 2015, leading to the formation of the IT Employees Wing supported by the NDLF.
The ripples of inflexible labour laws and active labour unions -- which affected information technology outsourcing by European countries, especially France and Germany -- are now being felt in the Nordic region, too. Recently, protests by the staff union forced Handelsbanken, a leading Swedish bank, to award the IT outsourcing contract to a local company after cancelling plans to award the contract to an Indian Tier-I vendor.
Schemes like the Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana strain fiscal resources amid rising unemployment and prices of food items.
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.
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Labour will recommend to the Union Ministry of Labour to frame laws so as to bring workers of the unorganised sector in the country under the social security net.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said it has been decided to fix the minimum wages at Rs 350 per day for unskilled non-agricultural workers for 'C' category areas keeping in view the modalities of fixing minimum wages.
'In India, managers and the leadership almost glorify overworking.'
Thrust on infrastructure and capital expenditure is expected to continue in the Union Budget for FY25.
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Tuesday said none of the 41 labourers rescued from an under-construction road tunnel in Uttarkashi district was in a critical condition.
If the concerns over risking political capital are overcome, the long-term gains for the Indian economy will be immense, asserts A K Bhattacharya.
Governments find themselves expanding the entitlements of the least productive - farmers and bureaucrats - and abridging those of the more productive parts of the workforce.
There has been no change in Tata Steel's strategy on operations in the United Kingdom (UK), company chairman N Chandrasekaran has told shareholders. The statement comes amid growing concern about the restructuring plan in the face of change in government in the UK. Tata Steel's plan for the UK entailed a 1.25 billion investment plan agreed upon by the Conservative party-led government in September last year.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi led-NDA government in its third term must tackle the problem of unemployment in the country, especially in the unorganised sector and in small and medium enterprises, former NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar said on Monday. Kumar also emphasised that the government now must finalise the four labour codes as it has been delayed beyond expectations. "We must recognise that post-COVID economic recovery has been a K-shaped recovery.
Retirement fund body EPFO is likely to approve this month a proposal to enhance its investments in equites to up to 20 per cent of the investible deposits from the current limit of 15 per cent. The proposal is expected to be considered and approved during the EPFO trustees' meeting scheduled to be held on July 29 and 30, according to a source. At present, EPFO can investment 5 to 15 per cent of the investible deposits in equity or equity-related schemes.
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.
As the last ambulance carrying one of the 41 labourers rescued from an under-construction road tunnel left the site in Uttarakhand's Uttarkashi district for a community health centre on Tuesday evening, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami and Union minister V K Singh went straight to a temple of local deity Baba Baukhnag to express their gratitude for his blessings.
The manifesto also commits Labour to constitute a judge-led inquiry into Britain's "injustices of the past", including a public review of the country's role in Operation Blue Star -- referred to as the "Amritsar massacre".
These include Apprenticeship Act 1961 and Labour Laws (Exemption from Furnishing Returns and Maintaining Registers by Certain Establishments) Act 1988
The action came after a 'jatha' of 101 farmers, who resumed their foot march to Delhi shortly after 12 noon on Saturday from the Shambhu protest site on the Punjab-Haryana border, reached the barricades put up by the Haryana security personnel.
The Samyukta Kisan Morcha, an umbrella body of farmer organisations that spearheaded the 2021 protest, adopted the resolution to "intensify the fight against the policies of the Union government to save farming, food security, land and livelihoods of the people".
Three Union ministers and farmer leaders will meet in Chandigarh at 6 pm to discuss their demands, including a legal guarantee for MSP for crops and farm debt waiver.
Bank strike continued for day-two on Tuesday, led by nine unions of public sector banks (PSBs) in the country, opposing government's policy to privatise the lenders. Customers will be inconvenienced to get services such as cash withdrawals, deposits, cheque clearances, remittance services. Government transactions related to treasury as well as business transactions will also be impacted. United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), an umbrella body of nine unions, had given a strike call for March 15 and 16.
Indian chess prodigy D Gukesh sealed a remarkable Chess Olympiad campaign with a decisive victory over GM Vladimir Fedoseev on Sunday in Hungary.
Uttam Ghosh compares the two events -- the labour ministry's ignorance and a young intellectual's incarceration -- and is mystified as many Indians are by what occurred.
Anguished over the Cabinet referring the Social Security Bill to a GoMs, members of a tripartite labour committee demanded that a legislation to provide social security to the unorganised sector be passed at the earliest.
Two days after five Chinese nationals were killed in a suicide attack at a hydropower project in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan, a Chinese company has suspended civil works and laid off hundreds of workers at another hydropower project in the same restive province, according to media reports on Thursday.
'A person is supposed to do 40 to 42 hours of work a week.' 'If a person is working more that, it is exploitation.' 'And it is because of this exploitation that employees experience stress which affects their mental health.' 'Sometimes it even leads to ending their lives. It is very unfortunate.'
India has a forest of labour laws, including anachronisms such as providing spittoons in the work place, and are so complex that most firms choose to stay small.
Highlighting the plight of train drivers, the note said loco pilots, especially those who drive goods trains, work 14 to 16 hours a day and get to go home after three or four days.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has filed a money-laundering case against Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's daughter Veena Vijayan and her IT firm for receiving 'illegal payments' from a Kochi-based private firm, official sources said on Wednesday.
Narendra Modi's pay-off from relaxing labour laws would be huge.
Rao was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2014.
Bangladesh labour activists said on Friday they had joined a lawsuit in Switzerland against world soccer body FIFA for allegedly failing to use its influence to ensure people working on 2022 World Cup facilities in Qatar are treated fairly.
