ISSN (Print) - 0012-9976 | ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

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Labour Force and Employment Growth in India

This study analyses the changing structure of the labour force and employment in India using the Employment and Unemployment Survey (2011–12) and the Periodic Labour Force Surveys I and II (2017–18 and 2018–19). The estimates indicate that there was a mere improvement in employment from 2017–18 to 2018–19; however, as this was accompanied by a decline in the size of the workforce between 2011–12 and 2017–18, this does not indicate recovery. The unemployment rate, especially that of youth, remains at a historic high. A remarkable decline in the share of agriculture in the workforce without a corresponding increase in the non-agricultural sector indicates a somewhat distorted structural transformation. A sizeable portion of the female population has been withdrawn from the labour and workforces. 

Impending Water Crisis in India

Emerging Water Insecurity in India: Lessons from an Agriculturally Advanced State by Ranjit Singh Ghuman and Rajeev Sharma, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2018; pp xxvi + 298, price not indicated.

The Plight of Street Vendors in India

Street vendors constitute the most significant and deprived segment of the country’s unorganised sector. Among vendors, the condition of Dalit, women, and child vendors is the most horrific, depressed, and necessitous. Other than being a source of self-employment for the poor, vending is vital to provide convenient, affordable services to the urban populace. It is ironic that the current laws, schemes, and policies are awfully unsympathetic, hostile, and unreceptive towards the ordeals of this section of the urban population. This paper attempts to explore and expose the vulnerability, fragility, and marginalisation of this section under faulty urban governance and development practices by tracking their lives, pains, and plight as vendors.

 

New Initiatives for Democratic Decentralisation in Haryana

The 73rd amendment to the Constitution has given a new lease of life to panchayati raj institutions in terms of the continuity of regular elections and certainty for their permanent existence. But the strength of these institutions has been left to the apathy of the state government. The political leaders and bureaucracy did not allow the institutions of self-governance to grow by granting them the desired functions, finance and functionaries. However, the present government in power in the state has delegated several schemes to strengthen these institutions.

 

RBI’s Efforts towards ‘Pandexit’ Go beyond Policy Measures

In a proactive move, the Reserve Bank of India rescued the economy with its innovative—blended conventional and unconventional—monetary policy measures. Low-interest rates, aligning targeted liquidity, and granting moratorium coupled with forbearance to enable banks to restructure loans, mandated the Kamath panel to work out modalities to restructure corporate sector loans. After affirming stability and orderliness of the financial sector throughout the crisis period, it rightly signalled descent towards normalisation paving for pandexit manoeuvring the tool of variable reverse repo rate.

The Pandemic and Its Discontents in India

India and the Pandemic: The First Year, Essays from The India Forum by The India Forum, 2021; Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan; pp xvii + 335, `695.

 

Ways to Tackle Hunger during COVID-19

COVID-19 has not only caused deaths but has also exacerbated hunger and starvation due to nationwide lockdowns in the country that have led to a massive breakdown in the supply chain networks. These tough times are no less than a “wake-up call” for India to devise a permanent supply chain solution that ensures an uninterrupted supply of food and nutrition as well as timely healthcare and employment for its population.

 

Deconstructing India’s Negotiating Dexterity

Does India Negotiate? by Karthik Nachiappan, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2019; pp 238, `1,295 (hardcover).

 

Reliability of PLFS 2019–20 Data

The April–June (2020) quarterly data for the urban sector showed a massive decline in the workforce participation rate and a huge increase in the unemployment rate. Still, the annual average work participation rate rose sharply in 2019–20 compared to the earlier two rounds of the Periodic Labour Force Survey estimates, and the average unemployment rate declined somewhat. Given these patterns, the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy data set, despite its own problems, seems to be casting a more realistic picture.

 

District-level Estimates of Unemployment Rates in Odisha

This article describes the possibilities of using an alternative method, such as small area estimation, for generating district-level unemployment estimates with higher precision. The SAE method is applied to generate the unemployment rate of different districts of Odisha combining the Periodic Labour Force Survey 2018–19 data of the National Sample Survey Office and the auxiliary variables from other secondary data sources.

 

State Policy and Recruitment of Domestic Workers and Nurses to West Asia

This paper analyses the comparative political economy of overseas recruitment policy towards nurses and women domestic workers by examining the disproportionate influence of specific interest groups. Shocking irregularities in private recruitment of nurses forced government intervention in 2015, but subsequent interventions and failure to empower state-run agencies to compete on even terms underline the power of private recruiters. Even as the government yields to demand from destination countries and business lobbies for migrant domestic workers, it fails to hear workers’ concerns about their rights. Thus, migrant workers continue to pay the price of systemic problems that plague overseas recruitment.

Infant Mortality Rate

Infant mortality rate has been improving in India for a considerable time now. From 2009 to 2018, India has improved the IMR from 50 to 32. This article aims to understand the underlying improvement in the IMR at the state level and establish whether there is convergence. For this exercise, the article uses health inequality measures like standard deviation, coeffi cient of variation, rate of improvement differences, β convergence and Gini coeffi cient. The fi ndings reveal that all states show improvement in IMR over 10 years, but the rate of improvement is varying amongst state and there is no convergence amongst the states. Small states and union territories improve the IMR at a higher rate compared to that of the national improvement rate.

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