1 http://english.illinoisstate.edu/Strickland/rsvtxt/smith1.pdf (culture theory)
2http://rintintin.colorado.edu/~vancecd/phil1100/relativism.pdf
3http://www.humanrightsinitiative.org/programs/aj/police/papers/gpj/threats_to_democracy.pdf
4http://mospi.nic.in/mospi_new/upload/nsc_report_un_sec_14mar12.pdf?status=1&menu_id=199
5http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unorganised_sector_(India) (The term unorganised sector when used in the Indian context is defined by National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganized Sector, Government of India in their Report on Conditions of Work and Promotion of Livelyhoods in the Unorganised Sector thus: The unorganised sector consists of all unincorporated private enterprises owned by individuals or households engaged in the sale or production of goods and services operated on a proprietary or partnership basis and with less than ten total workers[1] Amongst the characteristic features of this sector are ease of entry, smaller scale of operation, local ownership, uncertain legal status, labour intensive and operating using lower technology based methods, flexible pricing, less sophisticated packing, absence of a brand name, unavailability of good storage facilities and an effective distribution network, inadequate access to government schemes, finance and government aid, lower entry barriers for employees, a higher proportion of migrants with a lower rate of compensation.[2] Employees of enterprises belonging to the unorganised sector have lower job security and poorer chances of growth, and no leaves and paid holidays , they have lower protection against employers indulging in unfair or illegal practices.[3]
A NCEUS report estimates that in 2005 out of the 485 million persons employed in India, 86 percent or 395 million worked in the unorganised sector,[4] generating 50.6 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product)

6http://www.prsindia.org/uploads/media/Unorganised%20Sector/1189419973_Unorganised_sector_bill.pdf
7 http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=41639 Unorganised Sector Workers’ BILL | Backgrounder

The Union Cabinet today gave its approval for implementation of the Unorganized Sector Workers’ Social Security Bill. 2008 by making necessary official amendments in the Unorganized Sector Workers’ Social Security Bill, 2007 pending in Rajya Sabha. It would facilitate formulation of social security schemes for the unorganized workers.

In line with the commitment made by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government in the National Common Minimum Programme, the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector (NCEUS) was set up in September 2004 under the chairmanship of Dr. Arjun K. Sengupta as an advisory body and as a watchdog for the unorganized sector. The Commission has the mandate to examine the problems of the unorganized sector (also referred to as informal sector) and suggest measures to overcome them. The term of the Commission, which was initially fixed at one year, had been extended further from time to time. Now the term has again been extended upto 31st March 2009. The Commission has been assigned wide-ranging terms of reference. Being an advisory body, under the Ministry of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises the Commission has to submit its recommendations to the Government of India.

The Commission has been focusing on significant programmatic interventions, which could be adopted in the immediate term. These interventions are aimed at bringing about improvement in the productivity of enterprises in the unorganized/Informal Sector, generation of large-scale employment opportunities on a sustainable basis and enhancing the welfare of the workers in the unorganized sector.

DRAFT BILLS

The Commission had initially proposed a draft Bill “Unorganised Sector Workers (Conditions of Work & Livelihood Promotion) Bill, 2005” for comments and feedback. Based on the comments received from States, Trade Unions and others, the Commission revised the earlier proposal and proposed two Bills “Unorganised Non-agricultural Sector Workers (Conditions of Work and Livelihood Promotion) Bill, 2007” and the “Unorganised Agricultural Sector Workers (Conditions of Work and Livelihood Promotion) Bill, 2007” to cover unorganised agricultural workers and non-agricultural workers respectively. Part 1 of each of the Bills contains provisions relating to the regulation of conditions of work of wageworkers. Part 2 relates to the protection and promotion of livelihoods of the unorganised workers.

The Draft Bills provide for basic and minimum conditions of work for all unorganised wage workers and home workers. Instead of relying on costly and time consuming legal redressal procedures, the Commission has accorded priority to conciliation and has proposed the participation of workers’ representatives and elected representatives of the local bodies in the conciliation and dispute resolution committees.

The proposed Bills also mandate that the government takes the necessary steps to protect and promote these livelihoods through appropriate policies and programmes. The Bills have also provided for an institutional machinery to take a holistic view of the sector and to mobilise the necessary resources to help the sector overcome constraints and facilitate its growth.

NATIONAL FUND

The NCEUS also proposed the formation of a National Fund designed to meet the multipurpose needs of both enterprises and workers in the unorganized sector. The tasks proposed to be handled by the Fund are extensive as the sector needs a holistic approach for its development taking into account all essential needs covering finance, technology, raw material, marketing, infrastructure, skill and entrepreneurship and would cover both farm and non-farm sectors and also rural and urban areas.

PREVIOUS CABINET NOD

In a significant move the Union Cabinet on 24th May, 2007 had given its approval for social security for the unorganised sector workers. It said that the welfare schemes for workers in the unorganized sector would be introduced in a phased manner to fulfill the commitment made in the National Common Minimum Programme. Besides, the Government would constitute a National Advisory Board to design, from time to time, suitable welfare schemes for different sections of unorganized workers and recommend the same to the Government. On the recommendations of the National Advisory Board, the Central Government will, from time to time, notify scheme or schemes for one or more sections of unorganized workers.

Apart from designing model schemes for workers in unorganized sector, the National Advisory Board shall monitor the implementation of all notified welfare schemes; ensure that every eligible worker in the unorganized sector is registered and receives an identity card; oversee the record keeping functions performed the district level and the State level.

The Cabinet also paved the way for a Bill to be introduced in Parliament for this purpose. The Bill would provide for setting up a National Advisory Board and enable the Central Government to notify welfare schemes from time to time.

The Bill would also provide for constitution of a State Level Advisory Board by the State Government concerned.

The schemes notified by the Central Government will contain provisions for: (a) life and disability cover; (b) health benefits; (c) old age protection; or (d) any other benefit that may be decided by the Central Government.

The procedure for registering the workers in the unorganized sector will be prescribed and implemented. Every worker in the unorganized sector shall be eligible for registration subject to the following conditions: (a) he/she should have completed 18 years of age; (b) he/she should make a self-declaration affirming that he/she is a worker in the unorganized sector.

Every registered worker in the unorganized sector shall be issued an identity card which shall be a smart card. It shall carry an unique identification number and shall be portable.

The record keeping agency for this purpose shall be the district administration and the record keeping function shall be performed by the District Panchayat in rural areas, and Urban Local Bodies in urban areas. This will be directed by the concerned State Governments.8 http://labour.nic.in/upload/uploadfiles/files/ActsandRules/SocitySecurity/TheUnorganisedWoekersSocialSecurityAct2008.pdf
9 http://www.chathamhouse.org/media/comment/view/181739 Censorship: An Increasing Threat to Democracy in IndiaWednesday 1 February 2012by Charu Lata Hogg, Associate Fellow, Asia Programme There was nothing new or exceptional about the recent controversy over Salman Rushdie's aborted trip to Asia's largest literary festival, the Jaipur Literature Festival in India. On spurious security grounds, the Indian government cancelled the controversial author's trip and soon after that an attempt by the organizers to arrange his appearance via a video link fell through as local authorities warned them it could trigger violence at the event and in the city. The government's action followed a vigorous and predictable campaign by a senior conservative cleric and Islamic groups to stop the author from attending the event, on the grounds that his best- known work, The Satanic Verses, was offensive to Muslims. With elections due in India's most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, where Muslims constitute 18 per cent of the population, the ruling Congress Party was clearly eager not to upset the crucial Muslim vote. Yet this latest controversy once again stirred a debate on free speech in the world's largest democracy. Of late, the state's stranglehold over free expression has been getting tighter. Ironically, as India strengthens its position in the international sphere and is serving a term as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, its support of democratic principles within its borders has visibly weakened. The Free Speech Hub, an Indian media watchdog, recorded 24 attacks on journalists by vigilante groups and state security forces and 27 instances of censorship of content across media in 2011.Successive Indian governments have been sensitive about religion and other issues that can be brushed under the carpet of national security. The Congress Party and opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) share responsibility for the many and repeated assaults on free expression in the country. When it was in power, the BJP banned a book by the respected Delhi University historian D.N. Jha, which challenged the myth of the sacred cow and argued that Indians of the pre-Muslim period ate beef. It allowed riotous mobs to attack the sets of Canadian-Indian film director Deepa Mehta's film Water and banned her subsequent film Fire. The party did little to prevent rampaging crowds from attacking cinemas screening the Bollywood film Fanaa after its lead actor publicly criticized the construction of the Narmada dam – a controversial project because of the ecological damage and displacement of the local population it would entail. Congress, a political party built on a foundation of liberal freedoms, has proved the most inconsistent. The Satanic Verses was first banned by a Congress government in the 1980s. And it was under a Congress government that novelist Rohinton Mistry's book Such a Long Journey was hastily removed from Mumbai University's curriculum in late 2010 after the Hindu nationalist Shiv Sena party objected to its alleged derogatory remarks about the party and its leader, Bal Thackeray. A Left-Congress government did not stand by author Taslima Nasreen when she was targeted by angry mobs for what were termed the ‘extremely liberal views' in her second book Shodh, and she was forced to flee India. In 2011 reputed American radio journalist David Barsamian was deported within hours of arriving at New Delhi airport because he had flouted visa conditions by interviewing people in Kashmir as a tourist. In 2010, author Arundhati Roy was accused of sedition by the government when she dismissed India as a 'hollow superpower', saying that ‘India needs freedom from Kashmir, and Kashmir [freedom] from India'. This kind of intolerance by officials would perhaps be understandable if the issue was simply about Kashmir, which lies at the heart of its difficult relationship with its neighbour Pakistan and remains a strongly emotive topic for a majority of its citizens. But this discourse is not about Kashmir. Nor is it about the Muslim or Hindu right; both have lashed out with violence when their sentiments are hurt, and both have exploited their minority hold on coalition politics. Rather it is symptomatic of an increasingly insecure state that uses political expediency and exaggerated security concerns to clamp down on those who dare to dissent. Corruption dominated the national discourse in 2011, yet the issue was not the merits of the Lokpal Bill, which envisaged the creation of an anti-corruption ombudsman, but the manner in which the Congress government tried to clamp down on dissenting voices such as Anna Hazare and the public sentiment he whipped up through his non-violent fasting protests. The Rushdie imbroglio comes close on the heels of a Delhi civil court order that ordered 22 websites – including Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Facebook – to remove content regarded as ‘anti-religious‘ or ‘antisocial'. Within two days of the order, website operators were summoned to court on charges of criminal conspiracy and given a deadline to remove such content from their site. Such steps taken by the Indian state belie the belief that it is only groups such as the Shiv Sena, which acts as the self-appointed moral guardian of Hinduism, that are responsible for most attacks on freedom of expression. The reason why mobs can attack cinema theatres, burn books and beat up those who hold different views – as demonstrated in the case of the violent assault on civil liberties lawyer Prashant Bhushan in Delhi in 2011 – is that the state acquiesces in such bullying and allows aggressors to act with impunity.For those who take Indian democracy as a settled issue, a discussion on free expression is tedious, even unnecessary, because the clichés borrowed to explain the essence of India make allowances for such aberrations. However, a state that does not stand up to protect its citizens' fundamental rights is complicit in allowing violence to take place. And then there is the link between India's domestic stance on civil liberties and the position it adopts in international forums. In its foreign policy, India remains ambivalent on the international protection of human rights, abstaining or blocking country-specific resolutions at the UN Human Rights Council. At the UN Security Council in 2011, India did not support a resolution on Libya calling for protection of the Libyan people, and at the Human Rights Council it abstained from the resolution that authorized military force to protect civilians and did not support a resolution creating an international commission of inquiry on Syria. To justify this position, India typically promotes the doctrine of private engagement as opposed to public pressure. Yet at home it allows a violent minority to dictate state policy. For now the Indian state seems unlikely to reinforce the idea that citizens in a democracy can freely express opinions that some consider controversial or offensive. It seems even more unlikely that the government will send a strong message to this narrow-minded minority who try to control what individuals think, write and create.1 http://labour.nic.in/upload/uploadfiles/files/schemes/Scheme%20of%20National%20Child%20Labour%20Project%20Revised.pdf1http://labour.nic.in/upload/uploadfiles/files/schemes/Grant-In-Aid.pdf1 http://labour.nic.in/content/schemes/grant-in-aid-on-women-labour.php The Ministry of is running a Grant-in-aid Scheme for the welfare of women labour. This Scheme, which has been continuing since Sixth Five Year Plan (1981-82), is administered through voluntary organizations by giving grant-in-aid to them for the following purposes: * Organizing working women and educating them about their rights/duties, Legal aid to working women * Seminars, workshops, etc. aiming at raising the general consciousness of the society about the problems of women labour Under this Scheme, Voluntary Organizations/NGOs are being provided funds by way of grants-in-aid to take up action-oriented projects for the benefit of women labour. Projects relating to awareness generation campaigns for women labour are funded under this Scheme. The focus of the Scheme is awareness generation among women labour, in the area of wages, like minimum wages, equal remuneration, etc. to disseminate information on various schemes of Central/State Government Agencies available for the benefit of women labour. This Scheme was introduced with the intention of furthering Government’s policy of helping women workers become aware of the rights and opportunities available to them under various Schemes of the Government. Proposals of VOs/NGOs for providing grant-in-aid for undertaking awareness generation campaigns on women labour will be considered under this Scheme subject to their suitability. As per the provisions of the Scheme, grants-in-aid is being provided as 75% of the total cost of the project. However, the projects relating to studies entrusted to various institutes are funded in full, i.e., 100%. Year-wise details of funds allocation/released during last five years is as below: Year | Fund | Expenditure | No. of NGOs | No. of women | 2007-08 | 50.00 lakhs | 37.81 lakhs | 48 | 60000(approx) |