-Economic and Political Weekly Every successive reform in labour laws fails to plug the loopholes. The passage of the three labour code bills by Parliament —the Industrial Relations Code (IRC) Bill, 2020, the Code on Social Security (CSS) Bill, 2020, and the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code (OSHWCC) Bill, 2020—and the Code on Wages (CW) Bill enacted in 2019 is the first major milestone in labour market reforms in over...

-The Hindu The existing labour laws fell short in responding to the changed world of work The recently passed Code on Social Security, the Industrial Relations Code and the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, which along with the Code on Wages, 2019 subsume 29 labour laws into four codes, were passed after widespread consultations, says Union Labour and Employment Minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar * There has been criticism about the manner...

-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’...

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....

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...