-Scroll.in Trade unionists fear a large part of the unorganised sector might be left out of the ambit of the government’s labour code on social security. Rekha Patil, a vegetable seller on a footpath in suburban Mumbai, is a small part of India’s vast informal economy. Her husband, a farmer in Palghar, about 110 km north of Mumbai, has an unreliable income. But Patil’s earnings of Rs 350 a day barely sustain...

-Frontline.in Interview with Aruna Roy. ARUNA ROY is a well-known social and political activist. A former Indian Administrative Service officer, she resigned from the IAS in 1975 and has since worked with the most oppressed in society. Aruna Roy’s observation on government service is indicative of her future concerns: “Everyone calls it an elite service; I always felt the discourse should be a bit better than what it was. I was shocked...

-The Pioneer Government policies for the pulses sector have helped overcome multiple challenges. Effective implementation of an integrated module can solve most farm problems Agricultural transformation is high on everybody’s agenda today. Various stakeholders, including experts, policy-makers and political executives, have expressed their views on how to move forward with agricultural policies so that our farmers can prosper. However, performance of policies and strategies that are already in their implementation stage will...

  In its 2014 election manifesto, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), among other things, promised to "take steps to enhance the profitability in agriculture, by ensuring a minimum of 50% profits over the cost of production". In his 2018-19 Union budget speech too, the Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley informed the Parliament that the 2014 election manifesto of the BJP had stated that the farmers should get at least 1.5 times the...

-Scroll.in Full-day, quality childcare can make a crucial difference in India’s fight against malnutrition, and can possibly enhance incomes of working women. Savitaben is a tobacco worker in Rasnol village, Gujarat. She has two young children under five years of age, and every morning she leaves them in a crèche run by the Self-Employed Women’s Association or SEWA, a trade union of over 15 lakh poor, self-employed women workers. The children are...