-IndiaSpend.com Patna: Balmiki Kumar’s previous and current jobs are vastly different. For five years, Kumar, 33, taught geography at a private school in Hilsa, a town in central Bihar’s Nalanda district. He now works as a plantation labourer under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). That, however, is not the only difference. In his earlier job, he got paid. “The school shut after the lockdown in March and I...
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New report by American Bar Association exposes the dark underbelly of Indo-US sandstone trade
Often exports made by a country to the rest of the world are seen in a positive light by us. It is because exports not only earn precious foreign currencies (that can be used for importing goods and services or simply be used for building forex reserves), it also helps in generating effective demand for goods and services produced in that country and hence, contributes to economic or GDP growth....
More »Can raising the approved labour budget from 280.76 crore person-days to 306.6 crore person-days help the unskilled returnee migrants who prefer MGNREGA to Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan?
Although social activists and concerned economists demanded at least Rs. 1 lakh crore to be earmarked in favour of the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the Finance Minister in her budget speech on 1st February allocated only Rs.61,500 crore to it for the financial year 2020-21. As compared to the fund spent on MGNREGA in 2019-20 (i.e. revised estimate of Rs.71,001.81 crore), the amount set aside for the...
More »Provide income support, restore jobs -R Nagaraj and Radhicka Kapoor
-The Hindu On the contrary, scrapping labour laws will only reduce wages, lower earnings and reduce consumer demand Following the adage, “never waste a crisis”, the government of Uttar Pradesh, last week, introduced an ordinance that has scrapped most labour laws for three years — ostensibly for creating jobs and for attracting factories exiting China following the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. These laws deal with the occupational safety, health and working...
More »In our pursuit of economic growth, we ignored voices of India’s informal sector for too long -Radhicka Kapoor
-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...
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