MP Joseph

M.P. Joseph originally from the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), began his career winning the prestigious Reenu Sandhu Gold Medal at the Lal Bahadur Sashtri National Academy of Administration, Mussorie. Joseph was earlier in the 1977 batch of the Indian Police Service (IPS). He had also worked as a Probationary Officer in the State Bank of India for over a year and half. M. P. Joseph holds a Master's degree in Human Resources Development from the Victoria University of Manchester, UK and a Master's degree in Solid State Physics from the Cochin University of Science and Technology. Joseph is a powerful public speaker and well known in lecture circuits. He also hosts a weekly English TV Talk Show called Youth Xpress on Asianet News.
Joseph is currently Advisor and Consultant to Government of Kerala in the rank of Additional Chief Secretary to Government and Executive Vice-Chairman of Bhavanam Foundation Kerala, a non-profit public sector Company fully owned by the Government of Kerala, set up to build own homes for labourers and workers and for Domestic Migrant Labour in Kerala. Joseph is the co-author of a Study of Domestic Migrant Labour in Kerala with the Gulati Institute of Finance and Taxation, Thiruvananthapuram. He contributed to the draft Kerala Migrant Labour Social Security Bill, is Chairperson of the 12th Five Year Plan Expert Committee on Employment and Skills, of the Kerala State Planning Board, Conceptualized and drafted Bhavanam, a Housing Scheme for Plantation Labour in the State etc.
Early Life and career
Joseph started his career in the IAS as Sub Collector Trichur and later moving on as District Collector, Ernakulam, where he also concurrently held charge for as Mayor of the Corporation of Cochin in which capacity he played host as Cochin's First Citizen amongst others, to His Holiness Pope John Paul II during the only ever Papal visit to the State in 1985. Later he was Labour Commissioner, Kerala for the longest ever period for any Labour Commissioner in the state, a record of nearly 6 years. Joseph has also worked as general manager, District Industries Centre, Kollam, managing director Overseas Development and Employment Promotion Consultants, Kerala, Cashew Special Officer, Kerala etc. During the first Gulf War, Joseph headed a team of the Ministry of External Affairs that worked with the Indians fleeing from Kuwait through the Iraq Jordan border, in the desert camps between Iraq and Jordan ensuring the safe return of over 100,000 Indians fleeing the Iraqi invasion.
Joseph joined the ILO in 1992 and started up the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) in India. He highlighted child labour in public consciousness and moulded opinion and attitudes against it. His work and its impact has been highlighted not only in India but internationally and in discussions in the British House of Commons.
Awards
* The Saha Meitrei Sena Medal of the Royal Government of Cambodia awarded by the Prime Minister of Cambodia for the work of ILO IPEC on child labour in Cambodia.
* The Reenu Sandhu Gold Medal of the 1978 batch of the Indian Administrative Service IAS).
* Citation from the Government of Kerala for the work of the rehabilitation and return to India of over 100,000 Indian refugees from Kuwait through the Ruweished desert on the Iraq Jordan border during the first Gulf War.
* Award for the best performing District Collector on family welfare activities, awarded by the Government of Kerala.
Anchoring
Joseph has been an occasional host on TV channels and have created and anchored reality shows, travelogues, sports shows, debates and discussions on TV, including programmes such as Sporting '89, Just A Minute, the Coast (a weekly travelogue on Doordarsan on the rich and unique culture and the unity within diversity of the west coast of India, where Hindus, Christians, Muslims and Jews have coexisted over many centuries) etc.
Currently Joseph is hosting a Weekly English Programme on the prestigious Malayalam News Channel, Asianet News titled Youth Xpress: What the Young are thinking in Kerala and Outside'. .
Publications
* Impact of Information Technology on Labour and Labour Relations in India, Faculty of Education, Victoria University of Manchester, 1992.
* UN system in India: Position Paper on Child Labour and Background Document for UN system in India: ILO New Delhi, August 1998; Economics of Child Labour in Selected Industries of India, Centre for Research and Training (CORT), Baroda, 1998.
* Little Hands, an article on child labour in India, published in the Hindustan Times, New Delhi, 1 November 2002.
* IPEC in India: Looking Back 1992-1995, an ILO Publication, New Delhi, 1996
* Developing an Early Warning System to Identify Children Vulnerable to Dropout: A Concept Paper, unpublished, 4 February 2003.
* Food Insecurity and Child Labour: The Markapur Experience, technical paper published in Coming to Grips with Rural Child Work - A Food Security Approach (Eds: Nira Ramachandran and Lionel Massun), United Nations World Food Programme and Institute for Human Development, April 2002.
* From Ideas to Action: Food Assisted Approaches for Rehabilitating Child Labour - The Markapur Experience, paper presented at the Consultative Workshop on Food Insecurity and Child Labour in Rural India, organised by the World Food Programme (WFP), March 2001.
* Thoughts on Child Labour, article on child labour published in the German News, Berlin.
* Child Labour and IPEC, published in Trade Unions, Child Labour and IPEC, National Labour Institute NLI, September 1995.
* Memories of a Papal Visit, article published in the Hindu, Business Line, 29 April 2005, a personalised account of the visit of Pope John Paul II to Kerala, published on the death of the Pontiff in 2005

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