None of the issues which have been continuously raised by the central trade unions, including unemployment, minimum wages, social security and 14-point charter of demands, were addressed by the minister.
The implementation of four labour codes in one go from April 1 next year will usher in a new wave of reforms in industrial relations and also help in attracting more investments but employment generation will remain a key challenge in 2021. This year has also been a challenging year for the work force as well as for employers due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The government imposed a nationwide lockdown from March 25, which had an adverse impact on economic activities and resulted in exodus of migrant workers from large cities to their homes in the hinterland. Many migrant labourers lost their jobs and it took months for them to return back to their work places from their native places.
Trumponomics, poor growth, and high valuation certainly don't make a bullish recipe for Indian markets, warns Debashis Basu.
As the pandemic pushed employers to explore and adapt new ways to stay in the business, a survey has revealed that 6 out of 10 organisations have adopted 'work from home' policy post Covid-19 relaxations. Over 65 per cent of the employers have either introduced 'work from home' as a policy or are evaluating the same reflecting a maturity and the confidence in their employees, according to a survey by Grant Thornton Bharat. The survey was conducted online by Grant Thornton Bharat among 4,650 respondents across social media platforms.
Tamil Nadu -- often dubbed as India's own Detroit due to its thriving automobile manufacturing ecosystem -- is in no mood to miss the EV bus either. Recent developments attest to it. Vietnamese electric vehicle (EV) maker VinFast has promised a $2 billion plant in the southern state. And as promised earlier, the work on Tata Motors-JLR plant will kick off next week, on September 28, after the foundation stone laying ceremony.
Their favourite alternatives: Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines. Note, India is missing from that list. And this is despite an attractive financial incentive scheme for OSAT players. The reason, said a senior executive of a US chip company who had a meeting in Taiwan just a few weeks ago, is that "they want more predictability in government policy because they plan to put in big money."
Failure to reinstate salary even two years after the drastic cuts has landed the airline industry in a massive industrial relation crisis. While employees of Air India had organised a strike back in 2011, it is for the first time that private airlines are facing serious stress related to workers. IndiGo witnessed two of them, back to back. In the first instance, around 50 per cent of the IndiGo flights were delayed as a large number of crew members went on mass sick leave, apparently to participate in a rival airline's walk-in job interview.
Global rating agency Fitch on Thursday affirmed India's 'BBB-' rating with a stable outlook on strong growth outlook and fiscal credibility. Fitch said India is set to remain among the fastest-growing sovereigns globally with GDP growth of 7.2 per cent in the current fiscal year and 6.5 per cent in FY26, down from 8.2 per cent in FY24. "Fitch Ratings has affirmed India's Long-Term Foreign-Currency Issuer Default Rating (IDR) at 'BBB-' with a Stable Outlook," the global rating agency said in a statement.
'Generating employment requires a shift in policy.' 'If not, the country will face economic, social and political challenges in the coming years.'
'Make sure you provide enough support (income, nutrition, healthcare, and housing) to migrants stuck (and their households), so they are not compelled to seek work or migrate back.' 'Otherwise, the risk of contagion is extreme.'
Labour law changes for three years may not be enough as it takes a couple of years for factories to build and operations at a proper scale start only in the third or fourth year.
'The private sector believes that some enablers in labour-intensive sectors like apparel, toys, tourism, and media retail, can unlock a lot of jobs.'
'There is a difference between a politician and leader.' 'A politician will have his pound of flesh first and do everything else later.' 'A leader will sacrifice everything to help people.'
Sticky labour laws and a difficult business environment have led to employers shifting their new hiring in favour of contract labour where social security is much lesser, says Mahesh Vyas.
The move will help industries in pushing authorities for exemption under various labour laws at a micro-level, along with demanding changes to bring greater flexibility in their operations related to retrenchment, safety standards, and collective bargaining.
As the number of students seeking higher education abroad continues to rise, several countries are implementing new rules. Gaurav Batra, CEO and founder of Infinite Group highlights how these changes will impact Indians who are planning to study abroad.
While we seem to want soldiers on short-term engagement, warfare itself is getting more technical and needs skilled manpower. The world has seen the dismal performance of armies that rely on short tour of duty soldiers or have outsourced war to 'contractors' in Afghanistan and now in Ukraine, points out Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'The BJP's numbers in this government are almost the same as those enjoyed by the Congress under P V Narasimha Rao when the reform process was kicked off in 1991.' 'As before, the only constraints on the prime minister's actions are internal, not external.' 'They come from his own assessment of the political consequences of any action,' points out Mihir S Sharma.
Industry body CII on Thursday made a case for pushing reforms in sectors like land, labour, and agriculture by the Modi 3.0 government to accelerate economic growth, which is estimated to be around 8 per cent in the current financial year. CII president Sanjiv Puri said a lot of policy interventions in the past have put the economy on "a much stronger wicket". "The growth rate is poised to touch 8 per cent during the current year, marking the fourth consecutive year of above 7 per cent + growth.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi led-NDA government in its third term must tackle the problem of unemployment in the country, especially in the unorganised sector and in small and medium enterprises, former NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar said on Monday. Kumar also emphasised that the government now must finalise the four labour codes as it has been delayed beyond expectations. "We must recognise that post-COVID economic recovery has been a K-shaped recovery.
Recognising job creation for the youth as the foremost challenge for the economy, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday announced a comprehensive Prime Minister's package to facilitate the employment and skilling of 41 million youth with a central outlay of Rs 2 trillion over the next five-year period. The package will consist of five schemes and initiatives - three focused on jobs and two on skilling.
'The Indian private sector knows how to build and run educational organisations, what is needed is a large dose of removal of restrictions.' 'Government restrictions hold back universities in India from launching medical schools,' argue Ajay Shah and Vijay Kelkar.
'In difficult times as now, the call of the village is all that these migrants can hear,' observes Vijaya Pushkarna.
'With this amendment, permanent employees will cease to exist.' 'The government should give a human touch and human face to labour reforms.' 'Ideas like survival of the fittest, might is right, etc, are rules of the jungle.' 'They cannot give new terms like hire and fire to jungle law.'
Unincorporated enterprises in the manufacturing sector lost nearly 1.8 million establishments and shed 5.4 million jobs between July 2015-June 2016 and October 2022-September 2023, an analysis of the fact sheet on 'Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises (ASUSE)' and the comparable 73rd round survey in 2015-16 by the National Statistical Office (NSO) showed. An estimated 17.82 million unincorporated enterprises operated in the manufacturing sector in October 2022-September 2023, nearly 9.3 per cent down from 19.7 million unincorporated enterprises in July 2015- June 2016.
With a large number of Indian youth aspiring to work in the railways, delays in filling up railway job vacancies were a point of criticism against the BJP in the run-up to the elections.
'Over the next 20 years, we would be adding almost 10 million people to the workforce every year!' 'And we won't be able to give employment to even 2 million out of the 10 million every year.' 'Don't forget, it keeps adding every year.'
Growing at a robust rate due to economic reforms in key sectors like digitisation and infrastructure, India has emerged as a star performer and is projected to contribute more than 16 per cent of the global growth, the International Monetary Fund said on Monday. "What we have been observing for quite some time now is that India has been growing at a very robust rate. "It's one of the star performers when it comes to real growth when you look at peer countries.
Leading economic think-tank NCAER has advocated slew of policy reforms, including a felxible labour regime, to boost exports from the country.
Truck movements across the India-Bangladesh border are on the rise, with increasing rentals signalling a trade recovery between the two South Asian nations. Yet, geopolitical tension looms large, with Bangladesh now under an interim government for nearly two months.
The finance ministry expects a broad-based moderation in inflationary pressures on the back of an anticipated reduction in food prices as a result of the uptick in summer sowing. The retail inflation rate remained stubbornly clung to the 5 per cent mark in seven of the past eight months. "Core inflation is trending downwards, indicating a broad-based moderation in price pressures... Driven by strong domestic growth and benign global commodity prices, core inflation is declining continuously.
An increase in the farmer income support scheme PM Kisan Nidhi, the introduction of a 'robot tax' to fund reskilling of people who lose their jobs to artificial intelligence (AI), and a reduced income-tax (I-T) to bring relief to the middle classes - these are some of the items in the Budget wish list submitted by Sangh Parivar affiliates to Finance Minister (FM) Nirmala Sitharaman. Representatives of the affiliates of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), such as the farmer organisation Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (BKS); trade union Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS); Laghu Udyog Bharati, which works for micro and small industries; and Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM), which works on economic and policy issues, met the FM and other officials over the last couple of weeks as part of the pre-Budget consultations.
The Samyukta Kisan Morcha, an umbrella body of farmer organisations that spearheaded the 2021 protest, adopted the resolution to "intensify the fight against the policies of the Union government to save farming, food security, land and livelihoods of the people".
Illegal immigration, he said, has resulted in crime, corruption and inflation.
'You cannot treat workers like beggars.'
With the reality of coalition politics staring the BJP in its face, this was inevitable, points out Ramesh Menon.
There has been no change in Tata Steel's strategy on operations in the United Kingdom (UK), company chairman N Chandrasekaran has told shareholders. The statement comes amid growing concern about the restructuring plan in the face of change in government in the UK. Tata Steel's plan for the UK entailed a 1.25 billion investment plan agreed upon by the Conservative party-led government in September last year.
With an expected earnings growth of 15 per cent, benchmark index Nifty 50 may hit 24,500 level by December 2024 and move further to surpass the level of 26,500 by December 2025, Emkay Investment Managers said on Tuesday. The 50-share Nifty settled at 22,888.15 on Tuesday. In the previous day, it hit a new lifetime peak of 23,110.80.
While Narendra Modi spent fewer days abroad than his predecessor -- 275 days versus Dr Singh's 306 - he has travelled more widely than any other Indian PM.
A joint forum of central trade unions has given a call for a nationwide strike on March 28 and 29, to protest against government policies affecting workers, farmers, and people. The Joint Platform of central trade unions held a meeting in Delhi on March 22, 2022, to take stock of the preparations in various states and sectors for the proposed two-day all India strike on 28-29 March 2022 against "the anti-worker, anti-farmer, anti-people and anti-national policies" of the central government, a statement said. The statement said that roadways, transport workers and electricity workers have decided to join the strike in spite of the impending threat of ESMA (Haryana and Chandigarh, respectively). Financial sectors, including banking and insurance, are joining the strike, it stated.
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