-Livemint.com A failure to protect incomes could widen the gap between have-nots and haves and thus hurt growth When the facts change, I change my mind," John Maynard Keynes is believed to have said almost a century ago. Responding to the economic after-shocks of the covid pandemic, governments and central banks have been living by this maxim. In the UK and US, supposedly fiscally conservative governments have spent with abandon to prop...

-The Hindu Public works could provide valuable support to the urban poor, especially if women get most of the jobs The COVID-19 crisis has drawn attention to the insecurities that haunt the lives of the urban poor. Generally, they are less insecure than the rural poor, partly because fallback work is easier to find in urban areas — if only pulling a rickshaw or selling snacks. Still, the urban poor are exposed...

-TheNewsMinute.com More than 3 lakh families have already completed the 100 guaranteed workdays under the scheme, according to a report based on data from April to September. More than 3.3 lakh new job cards have been issued this year in Andhra Pradesh under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act scheme (MGNREGA), a recent report has revealed. The report, which looks at the implementation of the MGNREGA scheme during the six-month...

-The Hindu There is a strong case to attribute a more robust responsibility to platform companies and the State The Code on Social Security Bill, 2020, for the first time in Indian law, attempted to define ‘platform work’ outside of the traditional employment category. It says: “Platform work means a work arrangement outside of a traditional employer-employee relationship in which organisations or individuals use an online platform to access other organisations or...

-The Hindu These families are on the brink of urban poverty, forced to do what they once thought was impossible — borrowing for their children's school fees, defaulting on EMIs, falling back on rent, cutting down on necessities. Mumbai: MANY locks in the nation’s financial capital are being opened one by one, new Covid numbers are falling but most doors — or windows — to any opportunity to earn are still firmly...