-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...

-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...

-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...

-Newsclick.in The Public Distribution System is an essential social security measure, especially during a crisis like Covid-19, but biometric authentication is a roadblock. Over the past few weeks, the situation for daily wage earners has been particularly dismal. A telephonic survey with over a 100 people in rural areas of six states (Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh) by Road Scholarz, conducted in two phases (26-31 March and...

-The Indian Express As we grapple with a health, economic and humanitarian crisis of epic proportions, the immediate need is to provide emergency relief to cushion the effects of the dual shocks of the virus and lockdown on informal workers. COVID-19 is causing havoc across the world, destroying both lives and livelihoods. Developing countries such as India are particularly vulnerable as their vast informal workforce, which has no labour, social or health...