Bhagwant Mann and Arvind Kejriwal are realising that it is not a cakewalk to run a full state that is plagued with a fiscal deficit and where emotions run high at the drop of a hat, observes Sudhir Bisht.
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 Indian cement industry is hopeful of greener pastures after a long period of stress led by pricing pressures and other factors. The second half of FY25 is expected to bring respite due to price hikes, cost benefits and higher volumes, said analysts. The optimistic momentum also makes cement stocks attractive, analysts added, advising to buy dips following a period of bearish sentiment in these stocks.
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.
While all indicators pointed to economy drastically slowing down due to lack of demand, the government continued to steer its policies in the name of 'ease of doing business', aggravating widespread impoverishment and deepening the crisis further, the unions alleged.
Ballot papers were posted out as voting opened on Monday to decide if veteran leftist Jeremy Corbyn will remain the head of UK's Opposition Labour party, amid deep divisions within the 116-year-old organisation over the leadership challenge triggered by the 'Brexit' vote in June.
'All of these guys who are opposing the Supreme Court judgment are from dominant scheduled caste communities and none of them come from the scavenging community.' 'Not a single scavenging leader will oppose this Supreme Court judgment.'
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.
He argued that if inflation is low, stable and moving towards the 4 per cent target, why has the RBI not revised downward the bank rate fixed in June 2023?
'Currently, 81 per cent of all reserved tickets are booked through e-ticketing.'
Alleging that Modi has launched a "big assault" on the workers, a combative Gandhi vowed to fight their battle like the Congress did for the farmers on the land acquisition bill.
India has flagged concerns over non-tariff barriers (NTBs) faced by its exporters with the Russian government, commerce secretary Sunil Barthwal said on Monday. NTBs faced by Indian exporters are mainly in sectors such as marine products and pharmaceuticals.
Ten central trade unions on Tuesday said they are going ahead with their planned nationwide general strike on November 26 and also announced their support to a two-day farmers' agitation next week. The meeting of the Joint Platform of Central Trade Unions (CTUs) and Sectoral Independent Federations and Associations was held virtually on November 16, 2020. Unions expressed satisfaction over the tremendous response being received from workers and the people at large throughout the country to the ongoing campaign for the countrywide general strike on November 26, 2020, a joint forum statement 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.
The Centre has, however, retained its proposal to curb flash strikes as workers in all factories will be required to give employers a strike notice of at least two weeks after the Bill becomes a law.
'Workers and employers should be ready for a change demanded by the new dynamism of the economy'
The norms, say industry experts, are not sufficient to weed out fly-by-night contractors.
Corbyn won 61.8 per cent of the total vote, an even larger margin of victory than last year.
The Union finance ministry has rejected a proposal sent by the labour ministry to double the monthly minimum pension amount to Rs 2,000 under the Employee Pension Scheme (EPS). The Central Board of Trustees (CBT), the apex decision-making body of the Employee Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), was apprised of the proposal's rejection during a meeting on Saturday. "According to the recommendations made by a highly-empowered monitoring committee constituted by the government, a proposal to increase the minimum pension under EPS from Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,000 per month, by providing additional budgetary support, was sent to the ministry of finance.
Saying that more than 3,00,000 labourers were engaged in the Commonwealth Games construction sites, Bhartiya Labour Union general secretary A Khan alleged, 'these labourers are working in dangerous conditions with not even the minimum wages and without job security in absence of basic living amenities such as maternity and child care.'
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.
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.
Clashes also broke out at several places in Kashmir on Tuesday, leaving several persons injured.
'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.'
MPs Chuka Umunna, Luciana Berger, Chris Leslie, Angela Smith, Mike Gapes, Gavin Shuker and Ann Coffey held a press conference in London to tell reporters that they would sit as a separate independent group within Britain's Parliament.
>Bihar (18 days) has the most number of heatwave days in 2023, followed by Andhra Pradesh (15 days), Odisha (15 days), Jharkhand (13 days), West Bengal (8 days) and Tamil Nadu (6 days).
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.
Sticky labour laws and a difficult business environment have led to employers shifting their new hiring in favour of contract labour where social security is much lesser, says Mahesh Vyas.
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 Union government is considering a proposal to empower the states to frame separate labour laws in certain specific locations to attract investments, Union Commerce and Industries Minister Kamal Nath said on Friday.
With the Congress already opposed to the proposed law, regional parties might become the swing factor, says T N Ninan.
Favouring labour reforms but without 'hire-and-fire' system, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia on Friday said rigidities in labour laws were affecting the domestic job market.
'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.
'Leave aside the negative fallouts of phraseology like 'urban Naxals' and 'terrorists', both the BJP and the Congress have to re-discover themselves in the context of the 2024 election results, including those of the upcoming ones for Maharashtra and Jharkhand,' observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Union government is projected to share about 32 per cent of central taxes with states during the financial year 2024-25 against the 15th Finance Commission's recommendation of 41 per cent. The Revised Estimates (RE) for FY24, too, show a similar share of states in the central taxes at 32 per cent. In absolute terms, however, there has been an increase in the amount devolved to states compared to the Budget Estimates (BE) for FY24 at Rs 11 trillion.
The Coal India offering would follow a 5 percent stake sale in state-controlled Oil and Natural Gas Corp, worth $2.8 billion and slated for December.
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.
A large chunk of workers in north India, who are migratory in nature, were engaged in the construction sector, Union Labour Secretary Pillai said on Thursday and added that though these workers were covered under five basic laws, but in many cases, they were deprived of the benefits given under the laws.
The quality of employment has deteriorated in 12 of the 21 major states and Union Territories, as the proportion of workers in regular or salaried jobs declined between July 2022 and June 2023 compared to the previous year, according to a Business Standard analysis of the latest Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) released by the National Statistical Office. Assam experienced the most significant decline in the share of workers in salaried work, dropping by 8.7 percentage points to 10.8 per cent in the July 2002-June 2023 period from 19.5 per cent in the July 2021-June 2022 period. This was followed by Delhi (6.2 percentage points), Uttarakhand (5.2 percentage points), and Chhattisgarh (1.6 percentage points).
