-TheWire.in Various remedies are being suggested to tackle the growing rate of unemployment, but are they in tandem with the needs of the workers? Two issues were concealed under the din of elections. The first is the depth of the agrarian crisis with rising costs, falling prices and diminishing livelihoods. The second is the declining rate of employment in urban India, even within the informal sector, and the tumult among the youth...
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Why income transfers are not enough -Harsh Mander
-The Indian Express An urban employment guarantee programme is an idea whose time has come. Temperatures are rapidly warming up in what promises to be a blistering summer of India’s electioneering. Amidst the belligerent grandstanding on national security and the communal messaging barely below the surface, Rahul Gandhi’s announcement of a minimum income guarantee scheme came as a relief, if only because it tried to steer the public discussions to the...
More »Pathways to an income guarantee -Ram Singh
-The Hindu There is a compelling case for spending Rs. 3.6 lakh crore on the poor, but it must be done carefully The idea of a minimum income guarantee (MIG) has caught up with political parties. A MIG requires the government to pay the targeted set of citizens a fixed amount of money on a regular basis. With the promise of the Nyuntam Aay Yojana (NYAY) by the Congress party, it is...
More »'Government isn't able to provide even small jobs': Unemployment, anger in Jaipur's informal sector -Madhav Sharma
-Scroll.in Effects of demonetisation and GST continue to be felt across the country on the eve of the elections At three grimy market squares in India’s pink city of sandstone palaces, the fates of a former farming couple, a former factory owner, and a graduate illustrated how difficult it now is to find even a job of hard labour, as a general election looms in a country witnessing record unemployment. It had been...
More »Jobs and gloom -Jayan Jose Thomas
-Frontline.in Available evidence indicates that the employment situation in India may have worsened in the recent past, and the losses have been heavy for the informal sector. The delayed release of official data on employment only makes diagnosis difficult. This year’s Union Budget, even if truncated because of its interim nature, was widely anticipated for the manner in which it would address the question of employment. In the last week of January,...
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