-Reuters Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set in motion the first major revamp in decades of the archaic labour laws, part of a plan to revive the flagging economy, boost manufacturing and create millions of jobs. Successive governments have agreed labour reform is critical to absorb 200 million Indians reaching working age over the next two decades, but fears of an ugly union-led backlash and partisan politics have prevented changes to free...

-The Hindustan Times   Going by our Intelligence Bureau (IB) and some of the voices in the government, anyone asking for the protection of the country's forests, its rivers or its coasts is anti-national and destroying the country's economy. I have spent the better part of my life working to save India's natural wealth from the assault of development (largely in vain it often seems). I told successive governments that the hundreds of...

-The Hindu   While migrant labourers see price rise as their primary concern, they still rate caste and religion as determining factors in their voting decision After the rural poor, farmers and the urban middle class, political parties are now seeking to make a vote bank out of migrant manufacturing labourers. The Bharatiya Janata Party's election manifesto promises the concept of "Industry Family" between workers and factory owners, but does not elaborate on...

-The Indian Express   The Planning Commission numbers show that in the unorganised manufacturing sector, value added per worker has come down by over 5 per cent in the last decade. The Congress and the BJP manifestoes for the general elections talk about the need for raising employment numbers in multipliers but hardly show any understanding of where to maximise those. For both, the Holy Grail is rising of the profile of the...

-Frontline     Significant part of economic migration is still the result of desperation rather than hard-headed economic calculation. This, in turn, affects the conditions under which workers migrate and their lives and work as well.   PERHAPS the most poignant moment in the film Peepli Live-even though the movie is really more about the media than about the socio-economic realities of India-is at the very end, when the hapless protagonist, now a former farmer...