India to chair International Labour Organisation Governing Body after 35 years

After 35 years, India has once again assumed the chairmanship of the Governing Body of International Labour Organisation. The announcement was made by the Ministry of Labour and Employment on Friday, October 23. The Ministry also added that Apurva Chandra has been elected as the Chairperson of ILO Governing Body from October 2020 to June 2021.

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India to preside over upcoming ILO meeting

According to the ministry's statement, Chandra will be presiding over an upcoming meeting in November 2020 and during the event, he would have the opportunity to interact with senior officials and social partners of the member states. 

The ministry also added that the upcoming event would also provide a good opportunity to "appraise participants of the transformational initiatives taken by Government in removing the rigidities of labour market besides making its intention clear about the universalization of social security to all workers whether in the organised or unorganised sector."

Apurva Chandra is a 1988 batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer. He worked for seven years in the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas in the Government of India and then from 2013 to 2017 was the Principal Secretary (Industries) in the Government of Maharashtra. From December 2017 he served as the Director-General of Accquisisation for the Ministry of Defence.

Read: ILO Says Garment Industry Should Do More To Help Workers

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the International Labour Organisation recently stated that Asian garment factory workers have been seriously been impacted by the pandemic and that the industry must do more to protect and safeguard them.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many factories to either close outright or make serious cutbacks and this has negatively affected as many as 65 million Asian garment workers. Christian Viegelahn, a senior economist at the ILO's regional office in Bangkok has stated that a full recovery for the apparel industry may not come till the year 2022.

(With ANI inputs, Image Twitter/@ILO)

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