Political India: Engaging America

From The Hindu

Indian professionals pay “huge amounts” as social security contributions in the United States but are unable to draw any benefits on the basis of such contributions, Labour and Employment Minister Mallikarjun Kharge said on Thursday at a meeting with his United States counterpart Hilda Solis.

Mr. Kharge echoed the comments made last month by Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology Sachin Pilot. Speaking at a gathering of business leaders here, Mr. Pilot said Indian companies operating in the U.S. make “contributions to social security that they never see at any point.”

Following two meetings during an employment-focussed summit here, Mr. Kharge told Ms. Solis that Indian professionals were not allowed to stay long enough to qualify to receive the benefits of social security contributions. It would be mutually beneficial to work out a suitable reciprocal arrangement to “avoid the hardship of double payment of social security,” he pointed out.

In an indication of growing concern within the Indian establishment about the situation Indian entities paying for social security in the U.S. find themselves in, Mr. Kharge called for the commencement of negotiations on a bilateral Totalisation Agreement to remedy the situation.

At the meeting with Secretary Solis and other U.S. officials, the Indian delegation also emphasised that India had achieved “significant progress towards comprehensive social security coverage,” according to Minister for Press, Information and Culture Rahul Chhabra.

Labels: Mallikarjun Kharge, social security benefits, Totalisation agreement, U.S. Labour Secretary Hilda Solis

From The Hindu

Strengthening social protection systems and active labour market policies is the need of the hour given that many people, including the most disadvantaged, “will remain unemployed even after recovery takes hold.”

This was one of the key recommendations made to President Obama by United States Secretary of Labour Hilda Solis and her fellow G20 labour and employment ministers attending a two-day meeting here focussed on helping nations’ leaders coordinate labour market policy.

The ministers additionally recommended that continued attention must be paid to job creation and job preservation, including “vigorous implementation of existing policies and consideration of additional employment measures.” They said that especially in countries with extensive underemployment it was important to target efforts to generate employment for poor households and vulnerable groups, “utilizing lessons learned from recent policy innovations.”

The Department of Labour said that in this context the attending ministers reviewed the “massive programmes” launched in the last year in response to the crisis and discussed additional measures to ensure a sustained recovery that produces enough jobs for workers. They also discussed a 21st-century job skills training strategy, the Department of Labour added.

At the meeting the Indian Minister for Labour and Employment Mallikarjun Kharge made a detailed presentation on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana, two flagship employment policies of the Government of India.

According to the Indian Minister for Press here, Rahul Chhabra, Mr. Kharge’s presentation “generated discussion among the labour ministers who wanted to learn more about these two schemes which had touched the lives of such a large number of beneficiaries.”

In particular labour ministers of other nations expressed an interest in learning about how technology was used to reach the rural masses in remote areas, Mr. Chhabra said, adding that the Brazilian Labour Minister Carlos Lupi had also praised India’s achievements through such schemes and stated that these initiatives are specially worth replicating for large countries with diverse populations.

Secretary Solis added, “At the end of the day, recovering from the crisis and restoring sustained and balanced growth that creates enough good jobs for our people are goals that we cannot accomplish alone in our own countries. In an integrated global economy, we have to work together.”

Labels: G20, Labour and Employment Minister, Labour Ministers conference, Mallikarjun Kharge, NREGA scheme, social protection system