-The Hindu Business Line Economy is recovering but rural labour market still in distress Even as the economy is on the recovery track — spurring optimism about job creation and better employment prospects — a large part of the labour force, especially in the rural areas, continues to face challenges. Data from the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) indicates that stress in the labour market, which escalated after Covid-19 lockdowns,...

-TheWire.in Supriya RoyChowdhury's 'City of Shadows' is a compelling study of the lives of the poor in a rapidly globalising Bengaluru. The long caravans of workers leaving the cities for their villages during the national lockdown in 2020 made visible the large proportion of urban workers whose homes are in the villages. Combined with the farmers’ protests, they brought attention to the crisis in agriculture and the failure of agrarian livelihoods that...

-The Hindu Business Line The trend signals normalisation of economic activities to pre-Covid levels With economic activities reverting to normal on most fronts, domestic remittances by Migrant Workers, too, has touched pre-Covid level and in fact is even higher, according to payment players. “Things have got back to normal, we see a lot of activity in the market. People have gone back to jobs and continue to send money. That market continues to...

-TheWire.in Promises made are hardly kept and the responsibility to maintain basic public amenities such as toilets, sewage and clean water facilities falls on the slum-dwellers themselves. This article comes from a study undertaken as part of a Centre for New Economic Studies (CNES) Visual Storyboard Initiative. The three-part photo essay on this storyboard can be accessed through the following links (Part I; Part II; Part III) and all video essays uploaded...

-Hindustan Times Workers who have registered so far belong to diverse occupations, such as construction, apparel manufacturing, fishing, gig and platform work, street vending as well as domestic work. Nearly half of 40 million workers of the country’s informal economy registered on a recently launched national portal are women, and most workers regardless of gender are from disadvantaged castes, official data that shines new light on India’s invisible unorganised labour force shows. Trends...