-TheWire.in Various remedies are being suggested to tackle the growing rate of unemployment, but are they in tandem with the needs of the workers? Two issues were concealed under the din of elections. The first is the depth of the agrarian crisis with rising costs, falling prices and diminishing livelihoods. The second is the declining rate of employment in urban India, even within the informal sector, and the tumult among the youth...
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In Punjab's labour hubs, workers are pleading for jobs at a third of the official minimum wages -Arjun Sharma
-India Spend/ Scroll.in India’s informal sector continues to reel from the impact of demonetisation and GST. Stress had put deep wrinkles on Balkara Singh’s forehead though he was just 32 years old. The daily wage worker, dressed in a faded blue sweater and jeans, has been coming to the Gol Diggi labour hub in southern Punjab’s Bathinda city every single day for the last five years to look for jobs. Since the end...
More »PM's pension scheme: Two months into launch, workers not keen, call it poll gimmick -Christina George
-The Indian Express Makhan Lal, a construction worker who is on the verge of quitting work because of a dislocated shoulder, says: “I haven’t heard of Modi’s pension scheme or Rahul Gandhi’s NYAY... what I know is that we will remain poor, this basti will continue to have open sewage and during rains our houses will be under sewer water.” Chand Lal, 45, was back at his 8×8 feet shanty in...
More »Squeeze on jobs -TK Rajalakshmi
-Frontline.in The Oxfam India report on employment says jobs remain a huge challenge in India where half of the workforce depends on agriculturefor livelihood. Employment, or the lack of it, has emerged as one of the most contentious issues in the general election this year. Most surveys show that the single biggest concern preoccupying the electorate, especially the youth, is unemployment. The very fact that the government introduced a quota for the...
More »Why income transfers are not enough -Harsh Mander
-The Indian Express An urban employment guarantee programme is an idea whose time has come. Temperatures are rapidly warming up in what promises to be a blistering summer of India’s electioneering. Amidst the belligerent grandstanding on national security and the communal messaging barely below the surface, Rahul Gandhi’s announcement of a minimum income guarantee scheme came as a relief, if only because it tried to steer the public discussions to the...
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