-The Hindu Kerala and Karnataka have shown how democratic decentralisation has worked in their favour Mahatma Gandhi envisioned that a free India would rest on a foundation of gram panchayats, village republics that governed locally and epitomised Swaraj in practice. B.R. Ambedkar was sceptical; he described the caste-ridden, unequal village society as a cesspool. Yet, he was not unequivocally against decentralisation. Locally relevant initiatives The 73rd Constitutional Amendment mandates the constitution of panchayats at...

-The Indian Express Centre’s policy of monopolising decisions, socialising economic losses in the wake of Covid-19 has left migrant workers in the lurch The 40-day lockdown was further extended at a time of sporadic expressions of resistance and anger by migrant workers in a few cities. Extreme precarity doesn’t have a singular expression. While some are responding with anger, others are responding with resignation. The severe distress among migrant workers in India...

-Vikalp.ind.in Ministry of Labour & Employment, Govt. of India has amalgamated all the existing social security legislations into a Code. The proposed draft Code on Social Security is presently being referred to Parliamentary Standing Committee on Labour for examination. This commentary highlights the salient features of the proposed code and discusses the areas of improvement and concerns.   After considerable period of deliberations and consultations, the union government has circulated the draft...

-TheWire.in Migrant workers from Odisha tell The Wire they remain stranded because they don’t have Aadhar ID. Ironically, they missed out on Aadhar enrolment because they were away from their villages for work Bhubaneswar: Migrant workers hailing from Odisha, stranded in different parts of India since the nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus began on March 25, 2020, were relieved when the state government announced PLAns for their...

-Hindustan Times To enable their return to cities, improve wages, living conditions, safety net. Coercion won’t work Migrant workers are like nowhere people. Yet, they are everywhere. From high-rises to highways, who builds them? It is a silent army of migrant workers, working day and night with no job security, no social safety net, and poor living conditions — yet, theirs are not the names we see on the billboards or the...