Street vendors form a very important component of the urban informal sector in India. It is estimated that the total number of street vendors in the country is around 10 million.1 They comprise around 2% of the total population in the metropolitan cities. This paper broadly defines a street vendor as a person who offers goods for sale to the public at large without having a permanent built-up structure from which to sell.

This paper has threefold objectives: (a) to discuss the background and the need for a health insurance scheme; (b) to examine the different health insurance schemes including Community Based Universal Health Insurance Scheme (CBUHIS) and the most recent one proposed by the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganized Sector (NCEUS); and (c) to summarize broad lessons from existing health insurance schemes to foreground the broad contours of the most desirable insurance scheme in the Indian context.

lankan labour: The Wages Board of the Sri Lankan labour department is promoting child labour, if a government notice published in Sri Lankan newspaper is to be believed. The notice, which relates

Although the media is focused on the health impact of asbestos on the workers who would dismantle Le Clemenceau, here is the bigger picture: India imported Rs 22.7 crore and Rs 32.8 crore worth of fabricated asbestos fibres and asbestos friction materials in 2003-04 and 2004-05, respectively.

Unions greet labour ministry s plans sceptically

Brickmaking is a profit driven enterprise. At one level, it produces the basis of the built up world. But what of the hidden ecological and social costs of making a brick? vikas parashar delves into the many aspects of wha