-CounterCurrents.org The tragedy in Uttarakhand has again highlighted the extreme vulnerability of dam workers who toil often in very hazardous conditions in very remote parts of the country, away from public gaze. In particular the hazards faced by workers are very serious at several dam construction locations in the Himalayan region. While better safety conditions for dam workers are needed everywhere, this need is particularly acute in the Himalayan region. In recent...

-The Indian Express Somanathan said the government is trying to reach the target group of unskilled and semi-skilled workers through increased government expenditure in the construction sector. Working with a “constrained resource envelope” in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic ahead of Budget 2021-22, the government essentially had to make a choice between two policy options: handouts and capital expenditure. “We chose capex,” TV Somanathan, Expenditure Secretary, Ministry of Finance, told The...

-IndiaSpend.com More younger workers, and women, lost jobs and struggled to recover them. Even after employment rates recovered, quality of employment deteriorated, with individuals moving into less secure self-employment in agriculture, construction and small-scale trade. Bengaluru: The COVID-19 pandemic has delivered a large and sustained economic shock to the global economy. In India, the effect can be broadly divided into two phases--the shock of the nationwide lockdown in the months of April...

-Newsclick.in No scheme touches them, no law reaches them – but they hope that a better deal for farmers will benefit them. At the Ghazipur border between Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, Manish and a few of his friends have joined the farmers’ dharna only a few days back. They live in Baghpat district, barely a few dozen kilometres from the protest site but it could be another continent, or another age. “In the...

The World Economic Outlook – a bi-annual publication of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) -- released in October 2020 has anticipated that the economic progress made by the countries since the 1990s to reduce poverty would be turned upside down by the COVID-19 pandemic. On top of that, economic disparity would rise too in the post-COVID world because the crisis has disproportionately impacted women, informal sector workers and people with...