In the midst of national debates over the need for labour laws reforms and the efficacy of MG-NREGA in checking distress migration, a new report brings spotlight on the miserable living and working conditions of unorganized migrant workers from Rajasthan. Titled Their Own Country: A Profile of Labor Migration from Rajasthan, the report prepared jointly by Aajeevika Bureau and UNESCO informs us that 70% of seasonal migrant workers from Rajasthan...

-Economic and Political Weekly The current regime seeks to reform labour laws with the understanding that these reforms will improve industrial growth and expand the possibilities of enterprise. However, there is already ample evidence from within India that this obsession with reforming labour law, particularly in the way the government has done it till now, will not take us any closer in creating more jobs or a healthy industrial sector. These...

-The Hindu The Union government has also decided to resume providing subsidy on cooking gas through direct cash transfers straight into consumers' bank accounts. The Modi government has frozen the budget subsidy for cooking gas at Rs. 20 a kg. This will not mean any increase in price for the consumer right away. However, if international prices were to rise, as they normally do in winter, then the government will be faced with...

-The Indian Express The death of 12 women after tubectomies at a sterilisation camp organised by the Chhattisgarh government in Bilaspur underlines how India's family planning burden rests disproportionately on women's shoulders. This despite the fact that male sterilisation is actually a relatively easier and risk-free procedure. Consider this. In Chhattisgarh in 2011-12, the most recent year for which data is available, 1,27,114 tubectomies were performed against just 6,765 vasectomies - this...

-Down to Earth Pharma company's strategy of different prices for different countries to affect quality treatment of 185 million people infected with Hepatitis C worldwide Health activists and agencies on Tuesday criticised leading pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS)'s commercial strategy to sell new Hepatitis C medicine Daclatasvir, stating it would exclude a large number of patients who cannot afford expensive treatment. BMS had announced that it would create a tiered pricing strategy for...