-TheWire.in Conditionalities related to utilising health services do not make any sense in the absence of a service guarantee, and only serve to blame the victims and not the system for its failures. Nearly six months after the prime minister announced maternity benefits of Rs 6,000 to pregnant and lactating mothers, the cabinet yesterday approved the implementation of the maternity benefits programme (MBP) – a scheme that will likely exclude a large...

-BBC Why are millions of women dropping out of work in India? The numbers are stark - for the first time in India's recent history, not only there was a decline in the female labour participation rate, but also a shrinking of the total number of women in the workforce. * Nearly 20 million Indian women quit work between 2004-05 to 2011-12 * The labour force participation rate for women of working age declined...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The big red blotch on the Narendra Modi government's report card after three years in power is its dismal performance in job creation - and there are no indications that things will improve in the near future. Cold statistics from the government's labour bureau show that job growth plummeted in key sectors to its lowest levels in eight years in calendar years 2015 and 2016 at 1.55 lakh...

-Livemint.com Increasing mechanization and stagnant wages might be behind youth unrest in poll-bound Gujarat As Gujarat prepares for assembly polls scheduled at the end of this year, the big question is whether the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would be able to retain the support which Narendra Modi’s leadership guaranteed. The Hardik Patel-led Patidar agitation and Jignesh Mevani-led Dalit protests point towards rising discontent among a section of the youth in the...

-Livemint.com Farmers commit suicides less often than non-farmers but they are more likely to commit suicides because of economic distress compared to others With an ongoing petition in the Supreme Court on farmer suicides , and a growing clamour for farm loan waivers across several states of the country, the debate on farm suicides in India seems to be heating up once again. Several commentators and researchers have claimed for long that farmers...