-The Hindu It allows employers to extend unlimited advances to workers and charge an unspecified interest rate on such loans Debt bondage is a form of slavery that exists when a worker is induced to accept advances on wages, of a size, or at a level of interest, such that the advance will never be repaid. One of India’s hastily-passed Labour Codes — the Code on Wages, 2019 — gives legal sanction...

-TheWire.in A claim of an 8.4% real GDP growth rate has little relevance even as rural India battles plummeting wage levels, depleted incomes and widespread unemployment. With the release of the GDP figures for the quarter ending September, the government machinery has been in full swing advancing the narrative that economic growth is indeed back on track. However, sorely missing from these narratives is the inconvenient factoid on the currently dismal state of...

-TheWire.in In the face of a surplus of cereals and ever-dwindling prices as a consequence, farmers with small and medium sized land holdings have tried to shift to the cultivation of perishable fruits and vegetables. Their incomes, however, are still hamstrung by a lack of rural cold storage facilities in the country. The farmers of India have won an epic victory. For 15 months, they braved the biting cold, cruel heat, misrepresentation,...

The increase in the total number of suicides committed in India during 2020 in comparison to the previous years has hit the headlines recently. While some media commentators have stated that the economic distress (caused by job loss, income loss, failure of business, and growing hunger, among other things) in 2020 could have led to more suicides being committed, others have said that home isolation and deteriorating mental health (associated...

-Down to Earth Rate of returns for females higher than that of males; intervention to address gaps in India’s mental healthcare for adolescents need India has the highest adolescent population in the world — the country is home to over 250 million adolescents, according to India’s 2011 Census.  This has increasingly built a case for investing in them. The Population Foundation of India, a non-profit, commissioned a study ‘Investing in Adolescent Development, which examines...