-Newsclick.in An assessment by the Environics trust and the Mineral Inheritors Rights Association shows that not even a single company qualifies the fit and proper person test often used by international agencies as a benchmark for a place in the bidding process of natural resources. For the first time in five decades, India’s coal reserves are up for grabs to private sector bidders. The auction for 38 coal blocks is currently underway....

-The Indian Express A collective of NREGA women activists discovers its political voice. As Jean Dreze recently observed, one of the key ideas behind NREGA was that it would serve as a platform for increasing the overall political capacities of workers. It was hoped that people would organise themselves to collectively demand work and, in the process, learn about other legal and constitutional provisions. While learning about the latter has been patchy,...

-The Hindu There is a strong case to attribute a more robust responsibility to platform companies and the State The Code on Social Security Bill, 2020, for the first time in Indian law, attempted to define ‘platform work’ outside of the traditional employment category. It says: “Platform work means a work arrangement outside of a traditional employer-employee relationship in which organisations or individuals use an online platform to access other organisations or...

-TheWire.in Despite a welcome increase in budgetary allocation, it's less clear if the programme was able to truly serve the massive rural demand that was sparked by the lockdown. The finance ministry announced an additional allocation of Rs 40,000 crore in May 2020 to boost India’s rural job programme. It was announced that the supplementary allocation will be over and above the Rs 61,500 crore that was the budgeted estimate for the...

-TheWire.in A report by a Kathmandu-based organisation says that across South Asia, governments treat internal migrants as "human entities meant for profiteering by others". New Delhi: While India has brought in a legal provision under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) to fast-track the applications of non-Muslim refugees from three neighbouring countries, a recent report has called internal migrants in the country as “stateless without losing the state’s legal recognition”. The report, published by...