-The Indian Express Before the storm begins to take a turn for the worse or begins to ebb, it is time also for the farmers to reassess and seek positive concessions, because at the end of the agitation, no one would want a status quo ante, that is inevitable otherwise. “Unfortunately, the clock is ticking, the hours are going by. The past increases, the future recedes. Possibilities decreasing, regrets mounting,” Haruki Murakami’s...

-The Hindu Draft Model Standing Orders are out New Delhi: The Union Labour and Employment Ministry has sought comments and objections on the draft Model Standing Orders, which are the legally-binding documents that govern service conditions of workers, for the service, manufacturing and mining sectors, a Ministry statement said on Saturday. The Ministry published the drafts on December 31, 2020, inviting comments from stakeholders for 30 days. “Keeping in view the needs of the...

-The Hindu The Wistron incident is an example of how exploitative labour practices could accompany businesses moving to India Apple’s decision to place its Taiwanese supplier, Wistron Corp., on probation by not giving new orders — after an audit of the serious lapses in labour practices that led to violence in its facility in Narasapura in Karnataka — is a step forward in corporate accountability and ethical business operations. Pressured by Apple’s...

-The Hindu “Economic conditions continued to improve through November on the back of the uptick in agriculture and manufacturing,” RBI officials say in an article in the central bank’s monthly bulletin. There is now more evidence to show that the Indian economy “is pulling out of COVID-19’s deep abyss and is reflating” at a pace that beats most predictions, RBI officials, including Deputy Governor Michael Patra, said in an article in the...

The World Economic Outlook – a bi-annual publication of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) -- released in October 2020 has anticipated that the economic progress made by the countries since the 1990s to reduce poverty would be turned upside down by the COVID-19 pandemic. On top of that, economic disparity would rise too in the post-COVID world because the crisis has disproportionately impacted women, informal sector workers and people with...