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Patna, Feb. 29: The state cabinet today gave the nod to the Bihar Shatabdi Unorganised Sector Workers and Artisans Social Security Scheme, 2011.

The scheme will replace the Aam Admi Bima Yojana ' a central programme that covers death and permanent disability for the benefit of landless families in rural areas.

The new scheme will benefit and be payable to workers and artisans or their dependents and children under various schemes.

The programme, which will be extended to entire Bihar, will take into account the beneficiaries from April 1, 2011.

Under the scheme, a self-employed person of the state, who earns a livelihood from professions like blacksmith, basket making, bullock/cycle or hard cart pulling, carpentry, autorickshaw driving and others, are covered.

The labour department would implement the scheme and the money would be given to the deserving persons through the district administration.

Sources said in case of accidental death of a worker or an artisan, a grant of Rs 1 lakh shall be paid to his/her legal dependent under the scheme.

In case of natural death of a worker or an artisan, a grant of Rs 30,000 shall be paid to his legal dependent.

Moreover, in case of permanent total disability, a grant of Rs 75,000 shall be paid while in case of partial disability a grant of Rs 37,500 shall be paid. Apart from these, the scheme also covers the provision for scholarships to children of workers and artisans.

Under the scheme, Rs 1,200 (Rs 100 every month for a year) shall be paid as scholarship to a maximum of two children of a worker or artisan studying in classes IX to XII, government polytechnic and long-term trades in government industrial training institutes in Bihar.

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Worker security on govt agenda

Islamabad (Dawn/ANN) - The Pakistan federal cabinet on Wednesday flung open the doors for trade with India by raising the number of items that can be imported from the country from 1,946 to almost 5,600.

The decision overruled reservations of the ministries of textile and industries which had been pushing for restricted trade with India to protect domestic manufacturers.

The cabinets decision will allow the import of about 90 per cent of all the items that India normally exports.

Before this decision, the "positive list" allowed only 17 per cent Indian export items.

From January 1 next year, India will be able to export all its products to Pakistan without restrictions.

The cabinet also decided to do away with the 'negative list of 1,209 items by the end of this year.

The ministries of textile and industries wanted the restrictions to continue for five years.

Information Minister Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan said the cabinet had unanimously approved switching over from a positive to negative list trade regime with India.

"The products from negative list will be completely phased out by December 31."

She said the move would pave way for complete liberalisation of trade by the end of the year to culminate in an MFN (most favoured nation) status to India.

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Pakistan lifts trade restrictions with India

Key cabinet ministers are in the firing line after voting for Kevin Rudd in yesterday's leadership spill. Picture: Ray Strange Source: The Daily Telegraph

KEY cabinet ministers are in the firing line for "payback" after voting for Kevin Rudd in yesterday's leadership spill.

Senior government sources confirmed Robert McClelland is expected to be dumped from cabinet in a reshuffle to be announced by Julia Gillard before the end of the week.

But Immigration Minister Chris Bowen is expected to be spared.

The PM will now also be forced to find a replacement for another NSW ministerial vacancy created by the shock resignation of Mark Arbib.

Ms Gillard yesterday would not rule out demotions of key cabinet ministers who supported Kevin Rudd, claiming any changes would be based on merit.

This morning the PM still wouldn’t speculate on her ministry or rule out payback.

"I will judge my team the way I’ve said that I’m going to judge it: on merit and the capacity to take the fight up to the other side of politics," Ms Gillard told ABC Radio’s AM program.

"That’s what will drive my decision."

Ms Gillard said she would announce the ministry reshuffle in her own time.

Stephen Smith or Simon Crean are considered the likely candidates to replace Mr Rudd as foreign minister.

However, Mr Bowen was also named as a potential promotion into the job, not only on merit but as a gesture of unity.

"The next big challenge for us is how we challenge this reshuffle," a senior source close to the PM's office said.

"You would have to think Robert has to go. She wanted to do it last time but wasn't allowed.

"The problem is, can you have any confidence in the PM's office to manage considering the disaster of the last reshuffle."

Mr Rudd yesterday prevailed on caucus not to punish his supporters.

"My final request of the leader is no retribution against my supporters," he said. "They are good Labor people, every one of them."

Trade Minister Craig Emerson will act in Mr Rudd's role until a decision about the reshuffle - and could himself be in line to take the job permanently.

A spokesman for Mr Smith, who was foreign minister under Mr Rudd said: 'This is entirely a matter for the prime minister."

Ms Gillard will continue with a divided inner sanctum with some of Mr Rudd's backers, such as Martin Ferguson, set to stay on.

Leader of the house Anthony Albanese's office confirmed he would remain in the chief parliamentary head-kicking role after Ms Gillard had refused to accept his resignation.

"I would hope Julia Gillard would want to see me continue in the cabinet," Mr Bowen said.

"But that would entirely be a matter for the prime minister of the day and I will serve in any cabinet capacity for either of them."

Mr Ferguson is considered a valuable asset to the government and said: "I will always serve the Labor Party."

It was unclear what will happen to Manufacturing Minister Kim Carr who was demoted in last December's botched reshuffle.

By retaining Ms Gillard as leader, the party avoided an exodus of ministers with Attorney-General Nicola Roxon and School Education Minister Peter Garrett declaring they would not serve as ministers if Mr Rudd was re-elected.

Treasurer and Deputy Prime Minister Wayne Swan may also have refused to serve Mr Rudd.

David Bradbury and former defence minister Joe Fitzgibbon have been named as MPs from the NSW Right who could replace Mr Arbib and Mr McClelland.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, meanwhile, said yesterday’s leadership battle had changed little, saying Australia today had the "same untrustworthy" PM and the “same dud policies” as it did yesterday, before the spill.

"This isn't a new start for the prime minister it is just a stay of execution," Mr Abbott said.

Mr Abbott said Mr Rudd was still "nursing ambition".

"We know that Bill Shorten has an enormous opinion of himself, we know that Simon Crean and Stephen Smith were auditioning last week, and they will be waiting for this prime minister's first stumble," he said.

"I think the Australian people are desperate for better government. I think they know that we are better than this. I think they know that we are a great country which has been badly let down by a poor government getting worse."

BEIRUT: Outgoing Labor Minister Charbel Nahhas seized the opportunity at a handover ceremony at the Labor Ministry Monday to take aim at Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun, expressing bitterness over the way he was forced to resign.

Nahhas was replaced last week by retired judge Salim Jreissati after opting to resign rather than sign a controversial Cabinet decree approving the transportation allowance. He admitted differences with Aoun at the ceremony during which he handed over the Labor Ministry to Jreissati. Both Nahhas and Jreissati were nominated by Aoun, whose Parliamentary Change and Reform bloc is represented by 10 ministers in Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s 30-member Cabinet.

In a speech on the occasion, Jreissati also pledged to carry out change in the Labor Ministry within the country’s ruling sectarian political system.

Nahhas’ resignation and his replacement by Jreissati have led to the resumption of Cabinet sessions after a month-long hiatus following a dispute between Mikati and ministers from Aoun’s bloc over the transportation allowance decree and civil service appointments.

The Cabinet met Monday for the first time since Mikati suspended its sessions on Feb. 1 following the rift with Aoun’s ministers over the appointments of Christians to key posts in the public administration.

Before the handover ceremony, Nahhas briefed Jreissati on some of the ministry’s projects that have been accomplished and other projects that have yet to be carried out.

“Your Excellency, Mr. Salim Jreissati, the legal labor minister, I hand you today symbolically the Labor Ministry in the Lebanese Republic, while I walk out of an experiment of two years and three months in two successive governments. I hand you the torch after performing my duty in this respect, hoping that you will develop what I had tried to develop,” Nahhas said in a speech during the ceremony, attended by the ministry’s senior officials and advisers.

“I have begun this experiment and stayed in it, thanks to Michel Aoun’s support but I finished it in disagreement with him,” Nahhas said. He added that serving as the telecommunications minister in former Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s Cabinet and the labor minister in Mikati’s Cabinet did not change his convictions and principles.

“Rather, [the ministerial post] allowed me to sense the arrogance of the arrogant [people] and the weakness of the oppressed, which made me cling more to my convictions and principles and that one should not be neutral between the oppressor and the oppressed,” Nahhas said.

He said he had refused to sign the transportation allowance decree because it was “based on an unconstitutional Cabinet decision” and because it was proposed by the prime minister who is not the appropriate side to do so.

“The decree clearly and publicly violated the law and because it was unjust for all Lebanon’s workers, depriving them of LL3 trillion in end-of-service compensations,” Nahhas said.

Nahhas has been at the center of a political storm since last month, when he refused to sign a Cabinet decree officially approving a transportation allowance, arguing that it should be ratified by Parliament first. However, he did sign the decree containing the Cabinet’s decision to raise the minimum wage.

Aoun has also admitted differences with Nahhas. He told reporters last week that he had reached an agreement with Speaker Nabih Berri to legalize the transportation allowance decree, but Nahhas’ “circumstances might not allow him to cooperate with us.”

Aoun was reported Monday to have criticized Nahhas’ performance during meetings with his supporters. Al-Joumhouria newspaper quoted Aoun as telling FPM members: “We named him [a minister] after we removed the dust from him. No doubt, he is [an educated man], but he wanted to show off and take us wherever he wants instead of us taking him to where we want.”

Aoun was further quoted as saying: “Nahhas is like a plane which we downed because we did not want to fall with it. It crashed by itself and the passengers survived ... This man has stabbed us.”

In his speech, Nahhas warned Jreissati to be wary of what he called “rebellious employees and violators protected by politicians on sectarian pretexts.”

Responding, Jreissati praised Nahhas as “an extraordinary man of a national stature and intellectual and financial integrity” and promised to introduce change at the Labor Ministry. “I hope I will be able to carry out the projects he mentioned in his speech and during his private meeting with him,” he said.

“I know that there are many issues that need more social justice and that social security in Lebanon is not secured as it should.

“I know the problems of this ministry through my various reading not only from the fruitful closed meeting with him,” Jreissati said.

“I know that workers lack rights. I am aware of the competitive projects and in my country and the competition to the labor force.

“I promise you that demands for change and reform are not merely a slogan. I will seek to [carry out] change and reform within the current [political] setup,” he added.

Jreissati said he will work under one slogan: “Yes to stability, yes to calm but no to tranquility before the ambitions of this ministry have been attained.”

Link:
Nahhas bitter about being forced to resign

Chris Evans says the leadership fight will help strengthen the prime minister's authority in the public eye.

Key cabinet ministers are in the firing line after voting for Kevin Rudd in yesterday's leadership spill. Picture: Ray Strange Source: The Daily Telegraph

KEY cabinet ministers are in the firing line for "payback" after voting for Kevin Rudd in yesterday's leadership spill.

Assistant Treasurer and Sports Minister Mark Arbib has resigned from the Senate.

Senior government sources confirmed Robert McClelland is expected to be dumped from cabinet in a reshuffle to be announced by Julia Gillard before the end of the week.

But Immigration Minister Chris Bowen is expected to be spared.

The PM will now also be forced to find a replacement for another New South Wales ministerial vacancy created by the shock resignation of Mark Arbib.

Ms Gillard yesterday would not rule out demotions of key cabinet ministers who supported Kevin Rudd, claiming any changes would be based on merit.

Stephen Smith or Simon Crean are considered the likely candidates to replace Mr Rudd as foreign minister. However, Mr Bowen was also named as a potential promotion into the job, not only on merit but as a gesture of unity.