-Newsclick.in In 2006, chief minister Nitish Kumar scrapped the APMC Act in Bihar and the destructive effects can be seen in the seething anger amongst farmers. What the Narendra Modi government recently did through passing laws to deregulate agricultural trade, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar had accomplished 14 years ago, in 2006. Soon after becoming chief minister in alliance with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), he scrapped Bihar’s Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC)...

-Newsclick.in Fearing that recent changes in labour laws will lead to further contractualisation of labour, several contract workers have joined the unionised of an auto component firm. New Delhi: Better late than never, as the adage goes. In a significant development, a section of contract workers in a major auto component manufacturing company in Manesar has turned to unionisation by enrolling themselves in the employees’ body representing permanent employees. The staff of the...

-Newsclick.in Devastated by the pandemic and lockdown, people are now facing a back-breaking inflation, especially in everyday food items like vegetables. In just the past month, inflation (annual price rise) has zoomed up, delivering a body blow to family budgets. Recently released government data shows that retail inflation rate hit an eight-month high of 7.34%, up from 6.69% in August. This is general inflation, including all items of consumption. For food items, the...

-Newsclick.in The re-skilling fund, introduced through a new labour code bill, may end up discouraging workers from using it, fear experts. The re-skilling fund, introduced through the Industrial Relations (IR) Code Bill, 2020, with an aim to train the retrenched workers, may come with controversial provisions for the beneficiaries, including requiring them to produce a proof of conformity to the government, a media report on Monday has hinted. A retrenched worker, who takes...

-Newsclick.in Reforms in labour laws will not create jobs, if at all, the conditions of employment will be a “disaster”, they say. The labour codes approved by Parliament are the wrong solution for the wrong problem, experts and academicians argue, even as the Centre continues to harp on about bolstering investments and creating jobs through relaxing regulatory laws, now, more desperately in the wake of the pandemic-triggered disruptions. The wrong problem: labour laws...