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The urban to rural exodus of India’s labour population is being met with travel challenges, a delayed response from the government, as well as axed labour laws, that further weakens the opportunity to revive the household of these 100 million internal migrants. As migrants in India walk back home they face a new set of socio-economic challenges from many of their home states by way of scraped labour laws, as well as the lack of fiscal stimulus from the government. Let’s discuss how these aspects will change the dynamics of labour and economics in India.

A news item was published in the Indian Express recently with title “Noida Apparel Export Cluster asks Government to immediately provide 2 lakh Tailors and staff”. The news says that the Noida Apparel Export Cluster has sent a Letter to the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) with a request to facilitate arranging of workforce for its Noida readymade garment clusters, as several workers have migrated to other parts of the Country amid Corona Virus pandemic. In the Letter NAEC told the Government that “around 3,000 readymade garment Units employee nearly 10 lakh workers and export Rs. 18,000 – 20,000 crore readymade garments. We are facing severe problems of shortage of workers / manpower due to their migration to their native places. Our Noida RMG Cluster immediately required 2 lakh workers as Tailors and supporting hands and these requirement will be further enhanced to 3 lakh in the next quarter.”

The recent filing of cases against some journalists who have been articulating the dissenting voices against the prime minister Narendra Modi and his government are not merely the attempt to curtail the freedom to expression but more than that; it is an attack by Rightwing vigilantes on the plural character of India, the Constitution of the country and allow the rightwing government to perpetuate its reign of terror and trample the democratic aspiration of the people.

The central trade unions of the country in a joint statement has asked all its members as also the workers of all industries, to observe protest day on July 3 to focus on the anti-labour moves initiated by the Narendra Modi Government taking advantage of the prevailing threat of pandemic. The CTUs has said that the central policies are being tuned solely against the interests of the working class and all preparations will have to be taken to protect the job security of the millions of labourers which are at stake.

For the past two days, a news item published in a section of the media is in wide circulation regarding a reported move on the allegedly imminent privatisation of some of our banks, as well as to permit more and more private capital into the banking sector. Since, so far there is no authenticity on the origin of the news, or official confirmation of any such development, hence we need not circulate those newspaper clippings and web links which may result in avoidable confusion in the minds of employees.

Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests continued to erupt across Britain on Sunday, with tens of thousands demanding justice for George Floyd and an end to entrenched racism.

BHOPAL: Two decisions of the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government have come as a surprise and to some extent shocking. One decision relates to the en masse transfers of IAS officers at the time when the state faces Corona crisis. IAS officers who have been transferred include Commissioner, Indore division and also Commissioner of Bhopal Municipal Corporation. They also include Collectors of some districts.

Once the Chanakya of the BJP, the Union Home minister Amit Shah, during the period of coronavirus pandemic is being projected by his friends inside the party as the Shaurya Purush entrusted with the task to salvage the mage and prestige of the party.

The media has been the bete noire of ruling politicians ever since independent India’s first tryst with autocracy in 1975. Two years later, the loser of the 1977 general election, Indira Gandhi, ascribed her defeat to the absence of a feedback from the ground level because of the censorship which she had imposed. But this realization did not serve as a warning to her son, Rajiv, when he tried to enact a law, the Prevention of Objectionable Materials Act, before being dissuaded by widespread protests.

The fund-starved government seems to be in desperation to sell its stake in public sector undertakings (PSUs) worth several lakhs of crores of rupees in support of its growing expenditure. In fact, this is the easiest option before the government to raise large funds without any attachment or condition. No big deficit financing pressure. No need to take the extreme step of printing currency notes. A very large part of PSU shares belong to the government. They just need to be sold. If possible, the government would have finished the exercise right now when it needs a lot of money for emergency finance to tackle, first, the impact of multi-phase nation-wide lockdown and, then, sudden entry of super typhoons in the Bay of Bengal and the west coast of India, bringing massive losses of property, agriculture and life. Losses are roughly estimated at over Rs.1,00,000 crore, in southern Bengal alone.