-IDROnline.org How did India’s Public Distribution System adapt during COVID-19 and what can other social protection schemes learn from it? Social Protection (SP) broadly refers to a set of policies and programmes aimed at protecting people against poverty, vulnerability, and social exclusion throughout their life. Over the last 15 years, India has witnessed a growth in rights-based entitlements and systemic reforms to build a more inclusive SP system. These encompass the Mid-Day...

-The Indian Express Building infrastructure and services, including pre-primary education, maternity, disability and sickness benefits, and long-term care, will help ensure that India’s post-COVID recovery is equitable and gender-inclusive. The Cambridge Dictionary defines “infrastructure” as “the basic systems and services that are needed in order to support an economy.” Traditionally, infrastructure has been understood and interpreted to mean physical, immovable assets, primarily in the energy, transport, telecommunications and water sectors. Over the last...

Although services provided by the gig and platform workers touch the lives of each one of us, we have little knowledge about the role of digital labour platforms in transforming the world of work. Such digital labour platforms have created unprecedented opportunities for workers, businesses and society. However, they also pose serious threats to decent work and fair competition. A recent report by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) shows that the...

-The Hindu The indirect tax collections were 27% higher than that in March 2020. The gross GST collections in March hit a record of ₹1,23,902 crore, the Union Finance Ministry said on Thursday. This is the sixth month in a row that GST revenues have remained above ₹1 lakh crore. “The GST collections for March have created a record; it has never been so high. We have crossed the record collections by a...

-Scroll.in Technologies are known to increase bias, resulting in inaccurate judgements for minorities. In 2012, in United States’ Santa Cruz, a company called Predpol Inc devised a software that promised to predict future criminal activities by analysing past criminal records and identifying patterns. This simple idea of “predictively policing” an unsuspecting population aimed to change the face of law and order in the US. Police departments in major US cities began to use...