RajivSpeak

  A recent academic study has highlighted how caste and social identity continue to shape employment opportunities, wages and access to secure livelihoods in India, even as the country projects itself as one of the world’s fastest-growing economies. The findings, published in the 2026 Springer volume  Unequal Opportunities: An Analysis of Inequalities in Employment Opportunities Among Different Social Groups in Labor Markets of India , argue that structural discrimination remains embedded in both formal and informal labour markets. 

In its April 2026 South Asia Economic Update , the World Bank identifies India as the primary engine of regional growth, with the economy estimated to have accelerated to 7.6% in fiscal year 2025/26.  This macroeconomic surge, however, exists alongside a highly fragmented labor market where the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and deep-seated inter-state wage disparities—specifically between states like Kerala, Gujarat, and Chhattisgarh—create a complex landscape for the workforce.

India faces an accelerating heat crisis that threatens the health, livelihoods, and economic stability of hundreds of millions of people — and current policy responses are failing to keep pace, according to a new white paper published in April 2026 by Harvard University's Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability.

A sweeping policy report released by the Foundation for Economic Development (FED) argues that India’s minimum wage regime has become counterproductive, pricing millions of workers out of formal employment and costing the economy an estimated $60 billion in unrealised low-skill exports annually.

Marking  International Workers’ Memorial Day , fresh data from  Gujarat  has highlighted a troubling pattern of fatalities and injuries in the construction sector, with activists pointing to weak enforcement of safety norms and rising  climate-related risks .

  A perfect storm of geopolitical crisis and policy paralysis is pushing India’s poorest into a devastating double-bind. The ongoing war in Iran has sent shockwaves through global oil markets, and as LPG prices skyrocket and factory slowdowns ripple across urban centers, a massive exodus of migrant workers is underway.  But for millions fleeing the city’s hardships, the safety net of rural employment has all but vanished, leaving them stranded without work or income, says a detailed report prepared by the NREGA Sangharsh Morcha, a coalition of NGOs and unions, quoting individual migrants.

  A recent report published in the British media outlet  The Guardian , titled “Workers carved the largest modern Hindu temple in the west. Now, some have incurable lung disease,” took me back to my visits to the  New Jersey mandir —first in 2022, when it was still under construction, though parts of it were open to visitors, and again in 2024, after its completion.

  Across the West, immigration has increasingly been framed as a cultural threat or a political liability, a stance most visibly associated with Donald Trump but echoed in varying degrees across Europe and other advanced economies. What this debate often ignores is a hard demographic and economic reality: without sustained immigration, much of the Western world faces a shrinking workforce, rising dependency ratios, and long-term stagnation.

The recent report, " State of Finance in India Report 2024-25 ," released by a coalition including the  Centre for Financial Accountability , Focus on the Global South, and other organizations, paints a stark picture of India's burgeoning digital economy, particularly highlighting the exploitation faced by  gig workers  on platform-based services. 

This is a follow-up to my news story in Counterview about why Morbi, India’s ceramic hub, has become a major cause of concern for health rights organisations. The other day, Jagdish Patel, who heads the People’s Training and Research Centre (PTRC) – an organisation that has been working with occupational hazard victims, especially those suffering from deadly silicosis, for the last few decades – called me.

Recently, during a conversation with an industry representative, I was told how easy it is to set up a startup in Singapore compared to India. This gentleman, who had recently visited Singapore, explained that one of the key reasons Indians living in the Southeast Asian nation prefer establishing startups there is because the government is “extremely supportive” when it comes to obtaining clearances. “They don’t want to shift operations to India due to the large number of bureaucratic hurdles,” he remarked.

The other day, I was talking with YS Gill , whom I have known as an incisive analyst since my youth, when he, like me, was associated with the Communist Party of India (CPI). A passionate science activist committed to creating awareness of scientific thinking, he told me about the dangers of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and how it would lead to mass unemployment. Predicting that AI would replace human intervention in India’s call centers, he estimated that about 70 lakh people would be rendered jobless.

An Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) study, "Labour-force Perception about AI: A Study on Indian White-collar Workers", has revealed that as many as 60% of white collar workers fear job loss as a result of artificial intelligence (IA) being introduced in Indian industry, while only 53% "hope" that new jobs will be created.

The Print has carried an interesting story , headlined “The Great Indian Sanitation Scam. General castes bag govt jobs, Valmikis do the work”, with the sub-head, “Across India, proxy, ‘badli’, or ‘ewaj’ work is rampant in sanitation jobs.” Authored by Shubhangi Misra, and though rather too long, I got interested in it as I was personally witness to an outrageous event, on how ‘upper’ castes react to sanitation work, which took place in June 2016 in Ahmedabad.

  The Gender Centre at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA) has released a  pivotal report  shedding light on the state of women’s empowerment across India. This study focuses on the subnational (district) level in alignment with Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG 5), which aims to promote gender equality. 

  Real wages have barely risen in India since 2014-15, despite rapid GDP growth. The country’s social security system has also stagnated in this period. The lives of informal workers remain extremely precarious, especially in states like Jharkhand where casual employment is the main source of livelihood for millions. These are some of the findings  presented  by economists Jean Drèze and Reetika Khera at a press conference convened by the Loktantra Bachao 2024 campaign. 

Someone shared this on social media... This is what Karl Marx wrote in 1870. Indeed, very relevant today, as it was nearly 150 years, including for working class in India... --- The ordinary English worker hates the Irish worker as a competitor who lowers his standard of life. In relation to the Irish worker, he regards himself as a member of the ruling nation and consequently, he becomes a tool of the English aristocrats and capitalists against Ireland, thus strengthening their domination "over himself".  He cherishes religious, social, and national prejudices against the Irish worker. His attitude towards him is much the same as that of the “poor whites” to the Negroes in the former slave states of the U.S.A.. The Irishman pays him back with interest in his own money. He sees in the English worker both the accomplice and the stupid tool of the English rulers in Ireland. This antagonism is artificially kept alive and intensified by the press, the pulpit, the comi...

  Even as welcoming the Supreme Court  order  to provide ration cards to eight crore migrant/ unorganised workers, the civil rights organisation Right to Food Campaign (RFC) has expressed the apprehension that an estimated about 10 crore of them would still be left out. In a statement, RFC indicated, the Apex Court order only pertains to eight crore migrant/  unorganised sector workers who are registered on the eShram portal "but do not possess a ration card."

  The civil rights network, NREGA Sangharsh Morcha (NSM), protesting against the Government of India (GoI) decision of compulsory aadhaar-based payments to rural workers, calling it a major blow to the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), has said that this comes at a time when budgetary allocation for NREGA has been reduced to just Rs 60,000 crore in 2023-24 -- less than Rs 50,000 crore, if we deduct wage arrears from 2022-23, and the lowest as proportion of GDP (0.2%) in the history of the programme.

   A civil society tracker, seeking to periodically analyse the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), has said that NREGA budgetary allocation is only 0.29% of GDP and 1.85% of the total government expenditure of the financial year 2022-23, which is grossly inadequate. Thus, “As per estimates of researchers of the World Bank, for NREGA to run robustly, its allocation must at least be 1.6% of the GDP.”