-Working Peoples’ Charter Secretariat, dated 21st March, 2020   An open letter has been issued by civil society and trade union activists to the Finance Minister Ms. Nirmala Sitharaman, who is also heading the COVID-19 Economic Response Task Force. In that letter, a charter of demands has been put before the government to provide immediate relief to the working classes and the informal sector workers in the wake of COVID-19 outbreak in...

-Scroll.in The Working People’s Charter told the Centre that the economic risks the COVID-19 poses to workers employed in the informal sector cannot be overlooked. The Working People’s Charter, a labour rights group, on Friday urged the Centre to create an emergency fund of Rs 50,000 crore to provide social and economic support to workers in the informal sectors amid the escalating coronavirus pandemic. The organisation, which claims to represent trade unions...

-The Hindu Business Line The government must simplify and rationalise GST, kickstart rural consumption, revive agriculture and tackle the lack of credit for capital creation, says former PM Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, an eminent economist himself, feels that the Narendra Modi-led government needs to come out of its habit of headline management and address the economic challenges which the country is facing today. “We cannot afford to deny that India is facing...

-TheWire.in There is little doubt that the smaller stakeholders and businesses within India's informal economy have the most to lose, and yet their voices are not being heard. “Concluding RCEP [Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership] this year is the region’s ‘collective interest and highest priority’”, trade ministers of the proposed pact are reported to have announced after their meeting in China in early August 2019. India was interestingly not represented by trade minister Piyush...

-TheWire.in Various remedies are being suggested to tackle the growing rate of unemployment, but are they in tandem with the needs of the workers? Two issues were concealed under the din of elections. The first is the depth of the agrarian crisis with rising costs, falling prices and diminishing livelihoods. The second is the declining rate of employment in urban India, even within the informal sector, and the tumult among the youth...