-The Indian Express Last week, a number of state Governments made key changes in the application of labour laws. What are the labour laws in the country, and how can such changes impact firms, their workers, and the economy? As the economy struggles with the lockdown and thousands of firms and workers stare at an uncertain future, some state Governments last week decided to make significant changes in the application of labour...

-The Hindu Kerala and Karnataka have shown how democratic decentralisation has worked in their favour Mahatma Gandhi envisioned that a free India would rest on a foundation of gram panchayats, village republics that governed locally and epitomised Swaraj in practice. B.R. Ambedkar was sceptical; he described the caste-ridden, unequal village society as a cesspool. Yet, he was not unequivocally against decentralisation. Locally relevant initiatives The 73rd Constitutional Amendment mandates the constitution of panchayats at...

-TheWire.in While most of the laws may not be strictly enforced, does that justify doing away with them completely? In the last week, several important labour laws, meant to safeguard the welfare of the workers and ensure industrial safety, have been “suspended” for a few years in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat. Although the orders put out by each state Government have their own tweaks and variations, these decisions collectively come with...

-TheWire.in India implemented a lockdown 14 days after it recorded 50 cases. The relatively higher number of cases recorded in India may partly be the result of the Government losing two precious weeks before implementing any serious physical distancing measures. In part one of this three-part series, we presented a picture of the spread of COVID-19 in four South Asian countries. In the second part, we discuss two issues: How prepared –...

-Newsclick.in In April alone, over 12 crore jobs were estimated to have been lost, and unemployment is at over 27% in the beginning of May. After the loss of nearly 80 lakh jobs in March, most of them in the last week after the countrywide lockdown was suddenly announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 24, latest data collected by CMIE or Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy through their periodic sample...