-Scroll.in The systemic, structural reasons that precipitated their distress have been completely ignored. The images of devastation faced by migrant workers in the aftermath of the Covid-19 lockdown imposed in March shook the conscience of the nation: the scale of the problem and the severity of the distress pushed this hitherto invisible population into the spotlight of public and policy attention. More than 75 days into the lockdown, after the crisis had almost...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Briefing Note for Parliamentarians on Labour Law Reforms
-Press release by Working Peoples' Charter dated 21st September, 2020 Amidst the micro and macro-economic crisis of the last 5 years, the union government has aggressively pushed the agenda of labour law reforms -- purportedly to simplify India’s ‘complex’ labour legislations, improve the business environment, and augment growth and employment. These changes, driven primarily by the business fraternity, have been aimed at improving India’s ranking in the ‘Ease of Doing Business’...
More »MGNREGA : A case for rural regeneration -Debmalya Nandy
-The Telegraph The economic distress caused by unilaterally imposed lockdowns has brought the focus back on the rural job programme Narendra Modi’s cocky statement in Parliament in 2015 about the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act being a monumental failure of the Congress regime may have been a political jibe, but it showed that the government had no intention of boosting a programme which, since its inception, has suffered from the...
More »Over three-fourth of workers lost their livelihoods since lockdown, finds ActionAid India's national survey of Informal Labourers
ActionAid Association's (AAA) national level survey among people dependent on the informal economy during the third phase of the national lockdown towards the end of May 2020 (i.e. between May 14th and May 22nd, 2020) has documented the "nature and extent of the transitions in the lives and livelihoods of informal workers, including migrant workers, during the pandemic and provide[s] an insight into the precarity they experience and the coping...
More »Over three-fourth of workers lost livelihoods since lockdown, finds a national survey of informal workers conducted by ActionAid India
-Press release by ActionAid India dated 13th August, 2020 Out of 11,537 respondents, over three-fourths reported that they had lost their livelihood since the imposition of the lockdown. Close to half of the respondents said that they had not received any income, and about 17 per cent had received only partial wages. Approximately 53 per cent said that they had incurred additional debt during the lockdown. More than half of the...
More »