-The Business Standard Industry cheers, unions label the move veiled entry of a 'hire & fire' regime The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the Centre has proposed to give industries some flexibility in hiring contract workers for project-based jobs or short-term assignments, a move cheered by industry but slammed by trade unions as an entry of 'hire and fire' through the back door. The proposal, originally mooted by the previous NDA government...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: India's plans to expand solar energy 30-fold to 100,000MW in seven years could create more than a million new jobs but demand chunks of land cumulatively larger than the metro areas of Calcutta or Delhi, an environment think-tank has said. An analysis by the Delhi-based Council on Energy Environment and Water has suggested that the plan to raise installed solar energy capacity from the current 3,000MW to 100,000MW...

-GRISTMedia.com In the course of my work as part of a team set up to look into the socio-economic status of Adivasi communities, there were several things I learned about the Land Acquisition Act, 2013, and the amendments to it. Here are some important questions about land and the Act that we should be asking: * What is the State's relationship to land and its citizens? This a key question - and one...

-The Hindustan Times One does not have to agree with his views to be intrigued by the possibilities opened up by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's emergence as communicator/harangue-master in chief. Public conversations about who we are and who we want to be are key to the vitality of our democracy, and leaders can seed those conversations when they speak out their own views. When I hear people in the Delhi metro...

-Economic and Political Weekly The current regime seeks to reform labour laws with the understanding that these reforms will improve industrial growth and expand the possibilities of enterprise. However, there is already ample evidence from within India that this obsession with reforming labour law, particularly in the way the government has done it till now, will not take us any closer in creating more jobs or a healthy industrial sector. These...