Migrant Realities
Devotion & democracy draw migrants home
Devotion & democracy draw migrants home. Migrants are returning to Bihar in large numbers for the Chhath festival and upcoming elections. Trains from Mumbai, Delhi, Gujarat and Kolkata are bursting at their seams, carrying men and women who come not just to worship, but to vote. Most returnees say they will stay on until their ballots are cast, turning this annual festive homecoming into a powerful political migration.
‘We build India, who will build Bihar?’—Chhath train is a migrant story of despair
Patna: Manoj Chaudhary, 27, is a migrant Bihari worker on a mission. When he left his workplace in Pune, the mission wasn’t just to reach his village in Saharsa district for the Chhath festival and elections. It was also to survive the endurance test of the overcrowded special Chhath train. It means two days of standing without sleep or food, guarding his luggage like dear life. Going to the toilet is unthinkable on these trains.
From migrant worker to medical student: a tribal boy from Odisha scripts history
VIDEO: Shubham Sabar was working at a construction site in Bengaluru when he learned he had cracked the NEET exam. As he prepares to join the medical college in Odisha, the 19-year-old's family celebrates, but also worries about the years ahead without his income.
In the Courts
Top court upholds HC order to resume MGNREGA in Bengal
The Supreme Court on Monday upheld a Calcutta high court order directing the Centre to resume the employment guarantee scheme of MGNREGA in West Bengal. The scheme was put on hold in 2022 following allegations of embezzlement of funds. The High Court order had stated that the irregularities in payment of wages cannot be a ground to put the scheme in “cold storage” forever. The SC dismissed the Centre's appeal; against the order.
Yrs of rejection, bias took trans teacher Jane Kaushik to SC. She finally got justice—‘it’s about dignity’
New Delhi: After years of facing rejection and prejudice for being a transgender, Jane Kaushik, a trained teacher, finally found justice in the Supreme Court, which held both private schools and state authorities accountable for failing to protect her rights...the Supreme Court awarded her a total compensation of Rs 2 lakh: Rs 50,000 each from the Centre, the states of Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, and Rs 50,000 from a private school in Gujarat.
Travails of Fisherfolk
Killing fish, choking livelihoods: the scourge of plastic
Plastic pollution is the latest in the series of challenges faced by traditional fishers like Patil, pushing them to quit an independent Nature-based livelihood and become part of the industrial and urban daily wage labour force. What is being lost in this enforced transition is the fishers’ indigenous knowledge of the seas, termed “non-economic loss and damage” in the climate change lexicon.
Labour Demands
Kerala’s protesting ASHA workers march to CM’s residence
A section of ASHA workers who have been staging an agitation for eight months seeking an increase in their remuneration and retirement benefits, ramped up their protest by taking out a march to Cliff House, the Chief Minister’s official residence, in the State capital last week.
Breeding check workers’ strike hits anti-larval ops in Delhi
New Delhi: The strike by Municipal Corporation of Delhi’s (MCD’s) domestic breeding checkers, who are the corporation’s field workers in anti-mosquito drives, entered its 26th day as mediation by the labour department and the mayoral committee failed to break the gridlock over their protest in pay disparity among workers in different zones.
News from States
This is how Bihar’s Jeevika didis spent the govt’s Rs 10,000
Out of 1.25 crore Jeevika Mission members, one crore have received the first instalment of Rs 10,000. Here's how the beneficiaries in Nalanda district are using the money. Across districts, women are using the money in different ways — buying goats, pigs, juice carts, sewing machines or investing in small businesses they already run. Some, however, have chosen to spend it on their children’s education, buying small pieces of gold, or keeping it aside for emergencies.
About 8,000 schools with zero enrolment employ 20,000 teachers in India: Ministry of Education data
West Bengal accounted for the highest number of schools without enrolments, and the highest number of teachers employed in such schools. It was followed by Telangana, according to official data.
SSKM mishap: Contractual hospital employees face ID, vetting mandate before hiring
At the meeting held on Saturday, where chief minister Mamata Banerjee made a brief online appearance, hospitals were directed to ensure that all personnel wear identification cards, and no contractual employee would be appointed if their police verification was incomplete. The directives by the state government come in the wake of the alleged rape of a 13-year-old at SSKM Hospital last Wednesday by a former Group D employee, who was in a hospital uniform.
Recruitment scam: ED sleuths question Bengal minister Chandranath for 9 hours
West Bengal minister Chandranath Sinha was on Wednesday questioned for nearly nine hours by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with its ongoing investigation into the alleged primary school teacher recruitment scam, a senior official said. This was the third appearance of Sinha, the state's correctional services minister, before the central agency in the case.
The Gig Economy
Gig workers’ Act: Rules soon, cess quantum yet to be decided by Karnataka labour department
Bengaluru: Two months after passing the Karnataka Platform-based Gig Workers’ (Social Security and Welfare) Bill, which mandates levying a 1-5% cess per transaction on aggregators, the labour department is yet to finalise the quantum of cess for different aggregators.
Equal work, unequal pay: Wage gap persists among gig workers, says report
The report by workforce staffing services and HR Solutions provider Genius HRTech is based on a Digipoll survey among 1,550 professionals across industries during September 1-30, 2025. Collectively, it found that nearly half of the workforce -- 47 per cent -- believe gig workers are paid less than their permanent counterparts, revealing a persistent disparity that continues to shadow India's festive hiring landscape.
Layoffs and Hirings
Top B-schools see rise in internship-based hiring for MBA students
Top recruiters at the country’s leading business schools are increasingly taking the internship route for hiring instead of final placements, as it gives them more time to assess talent. Internship gives companies and candidates around two months to determine the right fit compared to 30-45 minutes in the final placements, recruiters and officials at Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) said.
Livelihoods
Pineapples offer a lifeline to traditional saree weavers in Banaras
Due to the uncertainty of livelihoods, many weavers have migrated to cities such as Surat, Mumbai, and Bengaluru. However, efforts are being made to revive the saree industry in Varanasi through new technologies and methods such as the use of pineapple fibre instead of silk.
Labour Reforms
Good job: On Tamil Nadu and women in hazardous jobs
The TN govt has proposed amendments to the Tamil Nadu Factories Rules, 1950, to allow women to take up even jobs titled hazardous or dangerous. These include electrolytic process, glass manufacture, manufacture and treatment of lead, generation of gas and petroleum, blasting, liming and tanning of raw hides and skins, and many others. Removing legal barriers should be followed up by provision of adequate amenities and facilities for women, including separate toilets, changing rooms, and closed areas for conducting medical checks which are mandated for such industries, besides drop home facilities in places that have hitherto had no women workers at all.
Bill In Jammu Kashmir Assembly Proposes Removing Curbs On Women To Work During Night
Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir government has proposed in its bill in the Legislative Assembly to lift restrictions on women from working during night in the Union Territory. It said that restrictions are being lifted as the women can work during night hours as per their will and consent.
Pending Wages
46cr wages due to safai workers for 2 decades, HC asks UP to explain
Noida: The Allahabad High Court has directed the deputy labour commissioner to explain why Rs 46 crore in pending wages has not yet been disbursed to 240 sanitation and gardening workers of Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority (GNIDA), nearly two decades after they were removed from service while demanding permanent jobs.
India’s first Agniveers
Union home ministry ask states to ensure private security jobs for ex-Agniveers
New Delhi: The Union home ministry has asked all states and union territories to nudge private security agencies and training institutes to absorb ex-Agniveers, citing their experience of working in the armed forces, according to people familiar with the matter. The move triggered sharp criticism from the Opposition which warned such an approach could create “private armies” and undermine national morale.
Farm News
Trouble in ‘soy State’: Madhya Pradesh soybean farmers lose interest over multiple factors
Madhya Pradesh is India’s largest soybean producer, but young farmers are losing interest in farming, facing key issues such as improper implementation of minimum support price, seed quality, input cost and the possibility of the import of soybean and soybean meal from the United States.
Labour Laws
New Bill for Indian workers abroad does not offer protection — it exposes them to more harm
In just the past three years, a recent parliamentary report reveals, more than 1.2 million Indians have migrated to destinations where labour laws are weak or security risks persist, all in pursuit of better livelihoods.
As Parliament debates the Overseas Mobility (Facilitation and Welfare) Bill, 2025, it must demand fixes: Mandatory standards, judicial checks, ILO-aligned rights, dedicated funds. The Overseas Mobility Bill has no enforceable standards for multilingual, accessible counselling on risks like passport confiscation or abuse. Vulnerable low-skilled workers — often from rural India — will board flights uninformed.
The battle to switch off as hours on the job grow
The Right to Disconnect Bill in Kerala seeks to safeguard employees’ after-hours rest, even as states like Maharashtra, Telangana, and Odisha extend maximum work hours. A Private Member's Bill tabled in the Kerala Assembly, the Right to Disconnect Bill, 2025, seeks to reclaim what its proponent calls a fundamental right to rest and dignity for private-sector workers. Introduced by N Jayaraj, chief whip of the Kerala Legislative Assembly and Kerala Congress (M) MLA from Kanjirappally, the Bill proposes that employees should have the legal right to switch off after hours — to ignore calls, emails, online meetings, or late-night messages once the day’s work is done.
Job Losses
Amazon Wants Robots to Take 600,000 Jobs
VIDEO: There are new concerns that Amazon, the second-largest private employer in the US, may be planning one of the biggest workplace transformations in modern history.
Amazon Plans Major Layoffs, May Cut upto 30,000 Corporate Jobs
Amazon is planning one of its biggest corporate layoffs yet cutting up to 30,000 office jobs starting Tuesday. The overall number of employees at Amazon is 1.55 million.
On Monday, managers in the impacted departments received training on how to break the news.
Care Workers
Young bodybuilders lift Japan's ailing care sector
Muscles bulging, bodybuilder Takuya Usui settles a woman into her wheelchair at a Japanese care home, where jacked Gen Zers are helping to ease labour shortages in a struggling industry. Gender stereotypes and poor pay have long discouraged Japanese young men from becoming caregivers, even as demand surges in a country with one of the world's oldest populations. But Visionary, a firm based in the central city of Nagoya, has hit upon an unusual solution: luring male bodybuilders into the care sector with perks including paid gym time and subsidies for protein shakes.