-The Times of India MUMBAI: A year ago, when the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act came into force, it was considered a landmark reform that positioned India among the top progressive nations, enabling women to stay in the workforce after childbirth. The well-intentioned amendment entitles working women to a 26-week paid leave, up from the earlier 12 weeks, something that progressive companies were already offering. With India’s women workforce participation rate dwindling from...

-Livemint.com The new subscribers to EPFO likely represent formalization of a section of the regular workforce rather than new additions to it New Delhi: Ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the jobs debate in India has heated up once again. Spokespersons of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) claim the Indian economy has created an unprecedented number of jobs over the past couple of years. The opposition as well as some independent...

-The Indian Express Women form 80 per cent of urban migrants, but public policy is blind to their concerns. A recent UN report says India is on the “brink of an urban revolution”, as its population in towns and cities are expected to reach 600 million by 2031. Fuelled by migration, megacities of India (Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata) will be among the largest urban concentrations in the world. Interestingly, the 2011 Census...

-CaravanMagazine.in The economist Jean Drèze’s book, Sense and Solidarity, published in late 2017, deals with the impact of Aadhaar on social-welfare programmes, such as the National Food Security Act and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, among other things. Drèze was a member of the United Progressive Alliance government’s advisory council, which designed the NFSA and MGNREGS. He co-authored some of the essays in this book with colleagues and...

-News18.com In an interview with News18’s Rupashree Nanda, Dreze, who was a member of Sonia Gandhi’s National Advisory Council and an architect of the National Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), says that there have been no major initiatives in the social field in the last four years, with the partial exception of Swachh Bharat. Government data reveal that the Indian economy is growing at a robust rate but noted economist Jean Dreze believes...