-The Hindu Wage theft — non-payment for overtime, denying workers their last pay check after he or she leaves a job, not paying for all of the hours worked, not paying minimum wages — is a trend that often goes unreported Haneesh Kumar P.B., an Indian migrant supervisor in an automobile company in Oman, was told to resign on April 30, along with some 400 colleagues. In all, the company asked around...

-The Hindu On the contrary, scrapping labour laws will only reduce wages, lower earnings and reduce consumer demand Following the adage, “never waste a crisis”, the government of Uttar Pradesh, last week, introduced an ordinance that has scrapped most labour laws for three years — ostensibly for creating jobs and for attracting factories exiting China following the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. These laws deal with the occupational safety, health and working...

-The Indian Express The Delhi government’s decision to hike minimum wages by almost 40% gave hope to thousands struggling to make ends meet. But two months later, little has changed on the ground — be it for the saleswoman supporting her family, or the factory worker doing overtime. Sarah Hafeez investigates. Vinay, a 32-year-old bus driver, was both surprised and thrilled to hear that his colleague, a conductor hired by a...

-The Hindu Children from the RTE quota are often left feeling small as equality seems to be lost in monetary disparity Thirty-two-year-old Uma Devi (name changed) is conspicuous in a crowd of parents who have come to pick their children up in swanky cars. She works as a Group D employee at a government hospital, but thanks to the 25 per cent reservation quota mandated by the Right to Education (RTE) Act,...

-The Hindu The Aadhaar Bill opens the door to mass surveillance. This danger needs to be seen in the light of recent attacks on the right to dissent. No other country, and certainly no democratic country, has ever held its own citizens hostage to such a powerful infrastructure of surveillance. The Aadhaar project was sold to the public based on the claim that enrolment was “voluntary”. This basically meant that there was...