New Delhi: The government on Thursday deferred a proposal on giving domestic workers the right over minimum wages, paid leave and regulated working hours under a national policy. The national policy for domestic workers, which would benefit over 6.4 million domestic workers, was slated to be taken up by the Union Cabinet for consideration.
The proposal, recommended by National Advisory Council (NAC) headed by Sonia Gandhi in April 2009, aimed at bringing domestic workers under the purview of existing labour laws, thus providing them all the rights and protection available to other workers. Gandhi had written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, saying the proposed policy should ensure remuneration without sex discrimination and protection against sexual harassment at work place to the target group. Labour and Employment Ministry had set up a task force to frame the policy spelling out a comprehensive social coverage for the huge domestic workforce such as paid annual leave and sick leave, protection from sexual harassment and social security coverage, including maternity benefits.
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03:15 AM, May 17, 2013
New Delhi: Youth Congress workers on Wednesday protested outside the Bharatiya Janata Party headquarters in the national capital over the BJP's demand for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's resignation. The protesters stormed barricades, following which the police fired water cannons. The protesters said that the BJP must stop asking for the Prime Minister's resignation and let Parliament function. This came even as Parliament was adjourned sine die last week. However, there...
12:44 PM, May 15, 2013
New Delhi: External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid will visit Saudi Arabia on May 24-27, the first visit by an Indian foreign minister in the last five years, during which the kingdom's Nitaqat work policy, regional and international issues would be discussed. Then external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee had visited Saudi Arabia in 2008. Khurshid's visit comes days after the trip of a high level Indian delegation, led by Overseas Indian...
11:40 PM, May 14, 2013
Washington: A professional US body of engineers has asked the Senators to reject any move to increase the number of H-1B visas, popular among Indian professionals, arguing that it has a damaging effect on American economy. In a statement issued on Monday, IEEE-USA - the largest American body of professional engineers asked the Senate Judiciary Committee to reject amendments to the comprehensive immigration bill that would increase H-1B temporary visa...
02:54 PM, May 14, 2013
New Delhi: Amid the media brouhaha in India over the border incursions by their troops, Chinese engineers were last week calmly tunneling in the heart of the national capital for the heritage line of the Delhi Metro network, signifying the growing commercial linkages between the two neighbours. Engineers of the Shanghai Urban Construction Group (SUCG) lowered a massive 300-tonne Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) into a crater that was once a...
12:49 PM, May 09, 2013
Biharsharif: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday asked Janata Dal (United) workers to be prepared to face "any kind of situation" in the future. "Though everything is now normal within NDA but we should be prepares to face any if and buts in future," he said. Nitish made this appeal to party workers while addressing the JD-U trader cell at the convention hall at Rajgir. Relations between NDA partner...
12:26 AM, Apr 29, 2013
Mysore: Ten girls from West Bengal and Bangladesh, including two minors, have been rescued from a sex racket in Mysore. The CID's anti-trafficking squad raided a motel after getting a tip off by an NGO. The police said that the hotel seems to have been built specifically for such a racket with secret rooms and hideouts and an alarm system to alert girls to take shelter in case of a...
07:12 PM, Apr 25, 2013
Dhar: Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said factionalism was one of the main problems plaguing the party and assured that voice of ordinary workers would be heard at the time of ticket distribution. Factionalism was one of the three problems plaguing the Congress. The other two were neglect of party workers and sabotage during elections, he said. Rahul was addressing a meeting of Panchayat representatives and office-bearers of the...
02:55 AM, Apr 25, 2013
Kolkata: Sex workers of Kolkata's largest red-light area are being given training by an NGO to identify fake currency notes to prevent them from being duped by some clients. The training programme conducted by Durbar Mahila Samanaya Committee, an NGO working for the sex workers, is the same as that given to visually challenged persons who learn to distinguish between genuine and counterfeit notes through touch and from hearing the...
12:48 PM, Apr 14, 2013
Colombo: The Talaimannar court has ordered the release of 19 Indian fishermen jailed in Sri Lanka for allegedly crossing into Lankan waters. The decision will be communicated to Indian authorities shortly. On Wednesday, the National Fishworkers' Forum(NFF) had sought the intervention of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh regarding the arrest and incarceration of 75 Indian fishermen in a week by the Sri Lankan Navy. Twenty-six fishermen from Karaikal, Puducherry who ventured...
12:40 PM, Apr 11, 2013
Amid worries that Saudi Arabia's new 'nitaqat' policy, which seeks to reserve 10 per cent jobs for Saudis, would affect thousands of Indian workers in the kingdom, External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid on Monday said there was "no need to panic" and the Indian government was ready to provide any assistance to affected Indian workers. ...
04:15 AM, Apr 02, 2013
Chinese authorities on Saturday said no signs of life have been detected nearly 30 hours after a massive landslide buried 83 mine workers in Tibet despite a major search and rescue operation. "Rescuers have not yet found survivors or bodies... The miners' survival chances were slim due to the scale of the landslide," officials of the regional government were quoted by as saying the state-run Xinhua news agency. ...
11:50 AM, Mar 30, 2013
As many as 83 workers were buried alive Friday when a major landslide hit a mining area in China's Tibet region, authorities said. The accident occurred at about 6 am in the capital Lhasa's Maizhokunggar county, Xinhua reported. ...
08:59 AM, Mar 30, 2013
A police havildar, who went to the Odisha Congress' headquarters in Bhubaneswar to apprehend those indulging in violence, on Monday was beaten up allegedly by party workers, police said. The incident allegedly took place when Havildar Nimai Charan Sahu entered Congress Bhavan in a bid to nab some people who tried to set afire a city bus carrying passengers. ...
02:15 AM, Mar 26, 2013
Workers of tea gardens in Jalpaiguri district in West Bengal are battling acute poverty and unemployment since the tea gardens shut down 10 years ago. The workers are now seeking permission to kill themselves as the extreme situation has even driven many to sell off their women to the human trafficking trade. ...
10:45 AM, Mar 25, 2013
Real hero Priti Patkar runs night shelters for children in Mumbai's red light areas. Her mission is to provide children with a safe haven and grooming them for a future away from prostitution. ...
09:40 AM, Mar 20, 2013
Two tribal women workers of Jharkhand Party (Naren) on Thursday alleged to the state Women's Commission and state Human Rights Commission that they had been molested by ruling Trinamool Congress activists. In the complaint, which was also sent to the SP and DM of Midnapore West district, the two adivasi women said though a complaint was lodged in Binpur police station following the incident, no action was taken. ...
10:47 PM, Mar 07, 2013
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11:22 PM, Feb 26, 2013
The Bangalore Police are on the lookout for a woman who is absconding after allegedly driving her car onto a footpath and killing one construction worker. The woman also injured three others. ...
10:50 PM, Feb 24, 2013
Trinamool Congress (TMC) workers on Friday ransacked a police station in Chaighoria in North 24 Parganas district over alleged police inaction on complaints of financial irregularities by a panchayat member. ...
11:08 AM, Feb 23, 2013
