-Hindustan Times The funding for and motivations of NGOs have often been a bone of contention between the government and civil society. So it is a positive move that the Supreme Court (SC) has stepped in and decided to review laws governing NGOs with the aim of looking into the adequacy of the regulatory mechanism to prevent financial irregularities and ensuring that funds are used for the stated goals. This has...

-The Hindu New Delhi: A group of central ministers led by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will meet on Thursday to discuss the proposed Labour code on wages and the Small Factories Bill, barely two weeks after trade unions led a nationwide strike to express opposition to proposed Labour reforms. “The group of ministers will meet on Thursday to discuss the proposed code on wages,” Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya said here on the...

-The Hindu The proposed Labour reforms seek to weaken worker protection at a time when the Indian economy is not creating enough jobs, and the right kind of jobs. On September 2, 10 trade unions in India organised what was said to be one of the largest Labour strikes in history. An estimated 120 million workers took part. The unions were protesting against the government’s unwillingness to grant a 12-point charter of...

-The Hindu Held to account by the Supreme Court, the Central government is using opaque methods to change the key provisions of the employment guarantee scheme and make it targeted instead of universal. There is a pithy saying in Hindi that the elephant has two sets of teeth, one for show and the other to eat. This seems an apt description of the approach of the Narendra Modi government towards the implementation...

-The Hindu The pursuit of full employment of Labour cannot primarily rely on domestic private investment, much less FDI. Only public investment will steady us in the long run. We are increasingly told that the inflow of capital — particularly the foreign direct investment (FDI) variety — increases employment levels and contributes to economic growth. In a rare interview given to The Wall Street Journal in May, Prime Minister Narendra Modi reinforced...