-Scroll.in The country has adequate stockpiles of foodgrain. But how can it ensure a varied diet for its people during this crisis? For agricultural labourer Dhanalakshmi Manikandan, her home garden in Tamil Nadu’s Pudukkottai district has never looked more appealing. With her daily income cut of by the lockdown to contain the spread of the coronavirus, the vegetables in her garden have become a valuable part of the daily meal for her...
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Diluting Laws Will Mean More Casual Labour – and That's Not a Good Thing -Anjana Thampi and Ishan Anand
-TheWire.in No job contract means lower pay and longer hours. In a desperate bid to encourage investment, several states have made sweeping changes to labour laws over the past month. A number of states have extended the maximum daily work hours from nine to 12, removed the requirement to pay minimum wages, diluted safety norms, restricted the rights of workers to unionise and made it easy for employers to fire workers. While netas...
More »Santosh K Mehrotra, Professor of Economics at the Centre for Informal Sector & Labour Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, interviewed by Sobhana K Nair (The Hindu)
-The Hindu India risks losing benefits of the demographic dividend by not creating enough jobs for new entrants, warns Professor Mehrotra. Santosh K Mehrotra, Professor of Economics at the Centre for Informal Sector & Labour Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University and author of the recently launched book Reviving Jobs: An Agenda For Growth said the current reverse migration has set the country back by 15 years, and stressed that the economic stimulus...
More »8-hour work days, and how we got there -Seema Chishti
-The Indian Express Over 150 years later, amid a pandemic and an economic crisis that has rendered several jobless, as state governments such as Gujarat, UP, Madhya Pradesh and others bring in ‘labour reforms’ that, in some cases, have suspended almost all existing labour laws, the historical background of some of these laws provide a useful context. The British brought in the system of indentured labour in 1819 via the Bengal Regulations...
More »Azim Premji Bats For Worker Rights, Says Labour Laws Are Not Among "Industry's Top Constraints"
-TheWire.in In an op-ed, the IT services billionaire has said that diluting "already lax laws" will exacerbate conditions of low-wage earners. New Delhi: IT services firm Wipro founder Azim Premji on Saturday said he was shocked to learn of recent decisions taken by various state governments to weaken labour laws. In an op-ed in the Economic Times, the Indian billionaire argued that the dilution of “already lax laws” would not boost economic activity. “This...
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