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The Union Cabinet on Friday took long pending steps to strengthen laws against child labour. It approved ratification of the Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138) and Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182) of the International Labour Organisation (ILO). The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave its approval...

Three buildings in Mumbai have been allocated to accommodate 165 pediatric cancer patients and their families who come from outstation to Mumbai for treatment. The centre in Cotton Green area of Mumbai was inaugurated by Union Minister of Road Transport & Highways and Shipping, Nitin Gadkari. The buildings spread across 1.2 acres, which belongs to...

About 400 million or one in ten people in Asia and the Pacific are living under poverty due to widening income inequality, according to a report titled ‘Eradicating Poverty and Promoting Prosperity in a Changing Asia-Pacific’. More than one in four people in Asia and the Pacific’s developing countries experience poverty in multiple dimensions. This includes additional deprivations that impact...

Founder and Chairman of HCL Ltd, Shiv Nadar (71) emerged as the ‘Most generous Indian’ with donation of Rs 630 crore towards education, according to the Hurun India Philanthropy List 2016. The list was released today by The Hurun Research Institute. None of the top three philanthropists of last year made it to the top...

Nearly 400 companies together shelled out about Rs 5,857 crore towards corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities in two years, Parliament was informed on Tuesday. Under the Companies Act, 2013, a certain class of profitable companies is required to spend at least two per cent of their three-year annual average net profit towards CSR works in a financial year. The norm came into effect on April 1, 2014. An...

The government argued for a plan for sustainable development, balancing the need to protect the environment and continued growth at the third World Conference on Environment organised by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) in New Delhi. Finance minister Arun Jaitley pointed out that the Indian society was at a “critical juncture” with challenges like pulling...

It is estimated that there are 20 million commercial sex workers in India, and around 80% of these, i.e. 16 million women, are victims of sex trafficking. This alarming figure begs for people to take notice of growing criminal industry of the trade of human beings, not only in India but throughout the world. Ruchira Gupta, Indian anti-sex-trafficking activist is...

The figures are stark. Nearly 1.8 billion people – or about 25 % of the world’s population, do not have access to safe drinking water and an estimated two-thirds of the world’s population may face water shortages by 2025. In India, more than 81 percent of adults, well over the global average, say they have changed their behavior...

Union finance minister Arun Jaitley has called for strict discipline and an arm's-length between corporate proposals and spending on corporate social responsibility (CSR) to ensure that companies are not supporting "their own proposals" from this sphere. Delivering the keynote address at an award function at the HCL office in Noida's Sector 126 on Tuesday, Jaitley said the idea of CSR...

Now companies can go Swachh Bharat shopping. Looking at increasing the participation of the private sector in its flagship programmes, the Narendra Modi government is opening a marketplace to put up all the cleanliness projects it wants help with. The Ministry of Urban Development is roping in industry groupings including Confederation of Indian Industry, FICCI...

Nanma Maram is an initiative based in Cochin to feed the hungry homeless. The Street Store is a global pop-up store for the poor homeless people to fetch some clothes and footwear for free. Another initiative called Roti Bank provides food to elderly and homeless after collecting them from different sources. The thought behind...

More companies are now spending more in corporate social responsibility (CSR) and top 100 listed companies have seen a jump of about 25% in their spending in last year, according to a research by IiAS. Overall spends of S&P BSE 100 companies increased 25% to Rs.65.5bn, or 1.7% of their three-year average profits. The largest...