Full Coverage: Labour

29.05.2006 A regional network of free-lance journalists of Bulgaria and the former Yugoslav republics was established in Belgrade, at the regional meeting organized by the International Federation of Journalists IFJ and the Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia (NUNS).

26.05.2006 US federal judge has awarded $ 1.2 million to a group of 50 Indian workersafter finding the company that hired them guilty of fraud, false imprisonment and violations of civil rights.

25.05.2006 In a massive raid in an industrial unit in the congested Sarai Kale Khan of South Delhi, Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) with the help of police rescued 39 children working in exploitative conditions.

24.05.2006 As top sportswear brands prepare to showcase their wares at the soccer World Cup in Germany, many sportswear workers in Asia are facing intimidation or dismissal for attempting to unionise, according to a report released today.

18.05.2006 Experts representing workers, employers and governments, have adopted a new Code of Practice on Safety and Health in Underground Coalmines at a meeting convened by the International Labour Organization (ILO) which will improve the safety and health of miners involved in one of the highest risk activities.

16.05.2006 For nearly two decades, Tamil Selvi has been running a vegetable stall on the dusty corner of a street in a residential area in Madurai, a major town in southern Tamil Nadu, India. Soma Basu, in Terra Viva, highlights the situation of street vendors in the state.

16.05.2006 The Civic Initiatives (Gradjanske inicijative association and the World Bank Office in Serbia and Montenegro will organize the Create the World You Live In knowledge forum, May 17, 2006, at the Belgrade's Media Centre, starting at 10:00 hours.

15.05.2006 The Care International in SCG and the Democratic Association of the Roma started the first educational programme for collectors of materials for recycling. The programme consists of three-month series of trainings in the fields of occupational protection, traffick regulations education, sorting of waste, technology for recycling of waste plastics and paper and environmental protection.

15.05.2006

social audit of rural work

THE National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) is barely three months old on the ground. This is precisely why the mass social audit of the Employment Guarantee Scheme (EGS) in Dungarpur district in southern Rajasthan in April held enormous implications for the way this ambitious piece of legislation could take root across the 200 districts in the country where it has been implemented.

12.05.2006 Mohammad Sajjad had dreamt of becoming a cricketer. His idol: Irfan Pathan. Destiny, however, landed him at a railway overbridge construction site at Ara. His job involved carrying sandbags and stone chips, weighing about 40 kg, over his head, 6 to 6. He is only 13.

12.05.2006 Seven suspected child labourers, including six girls, were buried alive under the heap of soil in Rauna village in Chandauli district, a police official said.A group of alleged child labourers, hailing from Gaya district in Bihar, were digging soil near a brick kiln when the mound caved in burying nine of them, Mughalsarai police station in-charge Ratan Singh Yadav said here

10.05.2006

09.05.2006

poverty reduction study

Case studies from Bangladesh, India and the Philippines provide lessons for rural poverty reduction.

08.05.2006 No country in the world has developed using only the first and second rank holders! Although they are a cause of pride, what is needed is an improvement in the efficiency quotient and there is strong evidence that this is not entirely the domain of the upper castes. The question of reservation, however, has to be understood differently for education (higher, technical and specialised) and employment. In case of education, reservation only allows somewhat guided entry into the institution, but the index person has to meet all the benchmarks fixed to come out successfully.

08.05.2006 The controversy over proposed reservation in the private sector for SCs, STs and OBCs and in higher educational institutions is yet to be settled but the Ministry for Social Justice and Empowerment has gone a step further — it has asked NGOs aided by the Centre to provide job reservations in their projects.

05.05.2006 An unusual ‘padyatra' or march by members of some 165 civil society groups from across India has just concluded in this dry, treeless district of northwestern Rajasthan state.

The 'padyatris' (marchers) had wound their way through every hamlet in this mainly tribal district, to assess the implementation of an ambitious government initiative to combat mass rural poverty.

04.05.2006 The MJAFT! Movement has brought up in public the various violations registered in the firings in the public administration since the Government of PM Berisha took the office. According to this MJAFT!, this “cleansing” has affected mostly employees with the status of civil servant, otherwise protected by the Law. MJAFT! also expressed its concern about the lack of transparency of this process and the failure of the Government to observe the decisions of the judiciary on this matter.

04.05.2006 The number of child labourers worldwide has fallen 11 per cent in four years.

02.05.2006 May Day is traditionally recognised as a day of celebrations for workers. But do workers in Africa have much to celebrate?

01.05.2006 An unending number of woes is plaguing National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) scheme, the most ambitious project of United Progressive Alliance (UPA). The discrepancy between the daily wage fixed by the various State Governments and Rs 60 fixed as the daily wage under NREG is taking the toll on the programme.