-Hindustan Times The OSH Code is the second major labour reform approved by the government. It cleared the Wage Code last week that contained “provisions of minimum wages and payment of wages to cover employees in both the organised and unorganised sectors. The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the Occupational, Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, also known as the OSH Code, that seeks to merge 13 central labour laws into a...

-TheWire.in Why asset redistribution is superior to income redistribution. Land and labour are two basic factors needed by rural people for income generation. While women have always played a key role in agricultural production, their importance both as workers and as farm managers has been growing in the last two decades as more men move to non-farm jobs – leading to an increased feminisation of agriculture. However, ownership of land is concentrated mostly...

-The Hindu The disease had claimed more than 154 lives in Bihar Gorakhpur: The tension on Sunita’s face is palpable as she looks at her eight-year-old daughter who is asleep on a bed at the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit at the Baba Raghav Das Medical College in Gorakhpur. While the official diagnosis is yet to be ascertained, doctors say the child has shown symptoms of Acute Encephalitis Syndrome, a group of diseases that...

-Newslaundry.com Affected families have much in common: low social status, low income, poor access to healthcare, and the non-existent reach of government schemes The countryside in Bihar’s north-western region of Tirhut is in full bloom at this time of the year. One is constantly in the vicinity of mango trees and litchi orchards and a good portion of agricultural land seems fallow. The sun is excessively punishing but it does little to...

-The Hindu Cases of acute encephalitis syndrome have seen a spike in Muzaffarpur this year, already claiming more than a hundred lives. Jacob Koshy reports on the appalling state of health care in Bihar, even as the debate on what is causing the deaths rages on For three days, Bihari Mahato and Shyam Babu Saha’s families have shared a hospital bed. The two daily-wage labourers, who have had to give up work...