The recently released quarterly Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data broadly confirms the dip in employment and jobs during the countrywide lockdown period, followed by a certain degree of recovery in the post-lockdown months last year as have been indicated by various survey-based studies and research papers. The quarterly bulletin on PLFS provides data on key employment and unemployment indicators i.e. Unemployment Rate (UR), Worker Population Ratio (WPR) and Labour...

-The Hindu Shift in tax burden comes at a time when pandemic has led to many job losses and reduced income levels In FY21, despite a stringent lockdown and a raging COVID-19 first wave, the gross tax revenue collected by the Centre increased over FY20. However, the increase was made possible by a sharp rise in contributions from union excise Duties. This compensated for the sharp drop in the share of corporate...

-The Hindu Nearly 120 senior officers reshuffled just hours ahead of Cabinet expansion The day before Prime Minister Narendra Modi rejigged the Union Ministerial Council, there was another major reshuffle under the administrative watch of an outgoing minister — in a statutory body tasked with managing lakhs of crores of rupees. Nearly 120 top officials in the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) that oversees the retirement savings of India’s formal workforce, were transferred...

-CBGAIndia.in India’s response to the pandemic has depended heavily on the exploited labour of women workers, most of them from marginalised backgrounds. These are ASHAs or Accredited Social Health Activists, the cadre of frontline health workers that has been mobilised for everything from door-to-door surveys, distributing medicine kits, measuring oxygen saturation, monitoring containment zones and spreading awareness about vaccines. 70,000 such women recently went on strike in Maharashtra demanding higher pay,...

-GaonConnection.com For nearly a month, frontline health workers in the state are on an indefinite strike demanding a monthly pay hike, status of permanent workers and compensation for dead colleagues. More details here. Since June 1, thousands of ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activist) workers across Madhya Pradesh are on an indefinite strike demanding a hike in their monthly honorarium and status of permanent workers. Over 60,000 of these protesting female frontline workers...