-The Hindu The Quarterly Employment Survey for the April-June quarter throws up some perplexing numbers The Labour Bureau released the results of the All-India Quarterly Establishment-based Employment Survey (QES) for the first quarter (FQ) of 2021 (April to June). The survey covers establishments employing 10 or more workers in the organised segment in nine sectors (manufacturing, construction, trade, transport, education, health, accommodation and restaurants, IT/BPO, and financial service activities). These sectors account...

-Countercurrents.org Real life has a way of surprising theory. One of the most intensely discussed theoretical questions on the Left has been how to bring agricultural labourers and peasants, including well-to-do peasants, together in a common struggle against landlord domination in India’s countryside. Numerous Marxist gatherings have for years discussed the contradiction between peasants and labourers holding up a decisive resolution of the contradiction between the landlords and the rest of...

-Hindustan Times Around 250 residents of Chhattisgarh’s Hasdeo Arand started a march from Surguja district to Raipur, around 330 kilometres away, on Monday demanding cancellation of all coal mining projects in their region.  Environmentalists and activists are also taking part in the march. “The representatives of all 30 villages of Hasdeo Arand ... are part of this padayatra (foot march) demanding justice from state and Central government by cancelling all coal mining projects...

-The Hindu The swell of public opinion in China has enabled government regulation and change in company policy On September 20, 2021, the Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers, on behalf of gig workers, filed a public interest litigation in the Supreme Court demanding that the Union government provide succour to workers affected by the pandemic. The petition has asked for ‘gig workers’ and ‘platform workers’ to be declared as ‘unorganised workers’...

-The Telegraph Reporters’ Collective started the online initiative for ‘demanding answers’ in terms of how the system worked for some and failed others Till now, burning pyres on sprawling grounds and riverbeds and overflowing crematoriums had borne testimony to the enormity of the tragedy. Now, those who died during the pandemic in India are being immortalised on an online “Wall of Grief”. “Our goal is not to criticise. We want people to come...