-The Hindu There are recognised ways to overcome the patents hurdle, ensuring social justice and boosting the COVID-19 battle In order to achieve global herd immunity and prevent new strains of COVID-19 from emerging, possibly for years to come, vaccines need to be affordable and available in massive quantities throughout the globe. This can happen through patent owners voluntarily licensing their products to other companies, especially Indian producers who are experienced at...

-The Hindu The public sector, private players and civil society should all work together for public service delivery COVID-19 has tested the resilience of all public institutions. Despite its efforts, bureaucracy has emerged as a major concern for the ineffective response to the COVID-19 crisis. This inadequacy is the reflection of the outdated nature of public bureaucracy. In the 21st century, democratic countries are still relying on traditional bureaucracies to perform public policy...

-The Hindu Business Line It needs to be simplified, avoiding multiple authorities and allowing for seamless integration of existing State-run schemes The Code on Social Security 2020 (SS Code) was passed in Parliament in September 2020 and obtained presidential assent. Thankfully, its implementation has been postponed due to States not issuing notifications. Now, due to the Covid crisis, implementation of all the four new Codes on labour is to be postponed to...

With the rise in Covid-19 daily new cases and daily new deaths since March this year, media reports (please click here and here) on migrant workers returning back to their native places (i.e. places of origin) from migration destinations (i.e. workplaces likes cities and large industrial towns to where the informal and low skilled workers from the marginalised sections of the society migrate seasonally, and sometimes for a longer duration,...

-Hindustan Times Studies on migrants, domestic workers, and jobs put off till situation improves. The delay may have an adverse impact on the proposed national employment policy. The Union government has suspended work on four key surveys on migrants, domestic workers, and jobs created by the transport sector and professionals because of the deadly second wave of the pandemic, possibly delaying a national employment policy based on these surveys. With lockdowns and curfews...