-Newsclick.in The jacking up of prices of a universal intermediary while at the same time cutting down on subsidies that could potentially insulate segments of the working people from the acceleration of inflation is proof of the fact. The official wholesale price index for March 2021, which was released a few days ago shows it to be 7.39% higher than for March 2020. Such a high rate of inflation has not been...

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...

-CaravanMagazine.in In the cover story of The Caravan’s March 2021 issue, “Mandi, Market and Modi,” Hartosh Singh Bal reported about the Indian government’s efforts to remake India’s agricultural economy for large private players. In the following excerpt from the story, Bal traces the infrastructure that the Adani group have already built to store, transport and market agricultural produce. There has been considerable conversation around what the entry of private buyers in procurement...

-The Hindu Rabi marketing season kicks off in Punjab Saturday but, until Thursday, the state and central governments had been locked in a tussle over the mode of payment to farmers. Chandigarh/New Delhi: A “threat”, some fireworks, and a concession — it was after a super-charged two-hour meeting between its ministers and Union Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Minister Piyush Goyal Thursday that Punjab finally agreed to introduce direct benefit transfer...

-The Hindu The political emphasis on welfare interventions is insufficient to address the emerging developmental issues in the State A major concern in contemporary Indian development is the widening socio-economic disparity across groups and regions. Even when regions perform relatively better in one developmental dimension, it does not often translate into all round development. For instance, Himachal Pradesh and Kerala might have attained better levels of human development but that has not...