-Livemint.com Govt notifies draft rules of labour code on Occupational Safety and Health, concerns remain New Delhi: The Union government on Friday notified the draft rules of the labour code on occupational safety and working condition, which promise an appointment letter to all employees, single registration and return filing for firms, a safety committee in big companies, and travel allowances to a segment of migrants, among other things. The draft rules are, however,...

Just before Dhanteras and Diwali this year, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) released the November edition of its monthly bulletin. The latest RBI Monthly Bulletin says that the GDP has contracted by -8.6 percent in the second quarter of fiscal year 2020-21 (i.e. July-September, 2020) as compared to the gross domestic product (GDP) during the corresponding period last year. It may be noted that India’s GDP shrunk by -23.9...

-TheWire.in A recent survey conducted becomes invaluable in terms of data on the socio-economic backgrounds of seasonal and short-term migrants. The lack of a comprehensive Database on India’s migrants has been one of the foremost hurdles preventing the Indian government from providing direct cash transfers to them. The most that the government has been able to say about migrants is their aggregate number. Indeed, one of the biggest non-medical tragedies of the COVID-19...

-The Hindu The relief measures do not seem to be commensurate with the economic disruption caused by the lockdown How does India compare in the quantity and quality of its COVID-19 response to other developing countries? Here we extend our earlier analysis of India’s fiscal response (The Hindu online, “India must enhance fiscal support for COVID-19 relief and rebuilding”, April 18, 2020) drawing on the International Monetary Fund Policy Tracker, the COVID-19...

-The Hindu Activists demand doubling of 100 days per household limit At least 1.4 lakh poor rural households have already completed their quota of 100 days of work under MGNREGA in the first three months of the year, and will not be eligible for further benefits under the rural employment guarantee scheme for the rest of the year. Another seven lakh households have completed 80 days and are on the verge of...