-PTI/ The Hindu Inflationary pressures, meanwhile, remained subdued as seen by a modest increase in input costs and only marginal rise in selling prices. India’s manufacturing sector activity improved for the third straight month in October with companies raising output to the greatest extent in 13 years amid robust sales growth, a monthly survey said on Monday. The headline seasonally adjusted IHS Markit India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) rose from 56.8 in...

-Press release by Working Peoples' Charter dated 21st September, 2020 Amidst the micro and macro-economic crisis of the last 5 years, the union government has aggressively pushed the agenda of labour law reforms -- purportedly to simplify India’s ‘complex’ labour legislations, improve the business environment, and augment growth and employment. These changes, driven primarily by the business fraternity, have been aimed at improving India’s ranking in the ‘Ease of Doing Business’...

ActionAid Association's (AAA) national level survey among people dependent on the informal economy during the third phase of the national lockdown towards the end of May 2020 (i.e. between May 14th and May 22nd, 2020) has documented the "nature and extent of the transitions in the lives and livelihoods of informal workers, including migrant workers, during the pandemic and provide[s] an insight into the precarity they experience and the coping...

-Newsclick.in Among the total respondents, 15% are from scheduled tribes and 39% are scheduled castes, which is higher than their proportion in the country’s population. The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown the workers, especially in the informal sector, into a deep crisis. A recent report “Workers in the Time of COVID-19" on informal workers says that more than 78% of workers have lost their livelihoods since the pandemic-induced lockdown. The survey by ActionAid India...

-TheWire.in From demonetisation to GST and now the lockdown, the government's policies towards the 'unorganised sector' has spelt nothing but rack and ruin. What has the BJP-led government of Narendra Modi done since 2014 that does not suggest it wishes to destroy the informal economy, also known as the unorganised sector? While the ‘unorganised’ informal economy now accounts for roughly half of India’s GDP – and is shrinking relative to the share of...