Migrant Realities
Paper Promises? How lack of awareness denies migrant workers their rights I The migrant welfare gap
PODCAST Migrants working in demanding and dangerous working conditions lead difficult lives across the nooks and corners of the country . But, activists working for migrant workers find it equally difficult to help them even as they battle a mix of little known welfare schemes that exist mostly on paper and are made difficult to access for workers by cumbersome documentation. On this podcast on The Migration Story, activists uncover the challenges of working for the welfare of migrant workers. They reveal how poor migrant worker are deliberately kept poor, helpless and vulnerable thanks to factors like systemic neglect and apathetic contractors.
How can we rush back like this: Mumbai to Kochi, workers from Bengal worry over SIR.
Migrant workers face a difficult choice: head back home and risk losing wages, or stay behind and risk being left out of the voter list. As the electoral rolls revision gets underway in the state ahead of next year’s Assembly polls, migrant workers from West Bengal are scrambling to find documents and head back home in time for the enumeration. While there is now an option to fill the form online, many are unsure how to go about it or say that they need to head back home to get their documents in order.
In the Courts
Biometric attendance system not illegal just because employees were not consulted: Supreme Court
In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court has endorsed the Biometric Attendance System for government workplaces, citing its advantages for every party involved. The court emphasized that the absence of prior employee consultation does not render the initiative unlawful. This ruling effectively reverses a prior decision by the High Court.
Labour Reforms
Central Trade Unions reject draft labour policy, ask govt. to convene Indian Labour Conference
In a joint response, CTUs said the new draft labour policy appeared to be less a roadmap for worker empowerment, and more an ideological project to redefine labour, not as a right but as a ‘sacred duty’; Labour Minister assured draft could be changed after consultations.
Exploited workers, a labour policy’s empty promises
In July, while probing instances of forced labour in the seafood industry on India’s eastern coast, this writer met hundreds of women driven to desperation, peeling fish heads on cold tables without gloves, all for meagre wages as farming failed their families. Promised Employees’ State Insurance (ESI) and Provident Fund benefits at the time of recruitment, they were reclassified as “daily wagers” a month before my visit. Against this grim backdrop — where 11 million people endure modern slavery in India, the world’s highest — the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government unveiled the draft Shram Shakti Niti 2025, which is claimed to be a “future-ready” policy cloaked in “ancient Indian ethos” from texts such as Manusmriti, but is blind to the brutal realities that workers face.
India’s new labour policy - ‘Shram Shakti Niti’ - casts digital illusions in a religious packaging
The Shram Shakti Niti fails to recognise that modern labour law is based on a rejection of a duty-based view of work; instead it upholds the rights-based view. By describing work as a “sacred and moral duty”, the policy seeks to introduce religious and scriptural conceptions to conceal and justify the extreme exploitation and deteriorating conditions of the working people.
Kerala demands amendments to Centre’s labour codes: Minister
Kerala will voice its strong opposition to the four labour codes introduced by the Centre at an upcoming conference in New Delhi, state Minister V Sivankutty said on Tuesday. The state does not agree with the provisions in the current labour codes that “weaken workers’ rights, social security, and trade union freedom”, he said. Kerala gives priority to ensuring workers’ right to get organised and bargain collectively, and to strengthening safety standards including minimum wages, the minister added.
Farm News
Sugarcane farmers may get a sweet deal
The government is reviewing a law to modernize and simplify outdated regulations governing the world’s second-largest sugar producer, and if the Centre goes ahead with plans to revise the Sugarcane (Control) Order, 1966, income of sugarcane farmers could rise. Under the proposed draft, the fair price would be tied to the total revenue from all cane-based products, and not just sugar... Today, sugar mills also produce ethanol, electricity, molasses, bagasse, and bio-CNG, two government officials said on the condition of anonymity.
The Quiet Exit of Rain-fed Farming
Rain-fed farming has traditionally escaped policy and funding attention, though it engages more than 60% of India’s farmers. In Karnataka’s Koppal, it now finds itself competing with state-backed solar farms for real estate, at a considerable social cost.
In relief for TN farmers, Centre likely to ease paddy moisture cap
On October 19, the Tamil Nadu government approached the Union government, urging it to raise the permissible moisture content in paddy from the current 17% to a more farmer-friendly 22%. An easing of the cap could help paddy growers benefit from government-backed procurement at MSP (minimum support price), lessening the burden of drying costs and ensuring their produce does not go waste, sources told The Federal. It would specifically help the short-duration Kuruvai crop, which has seen higher moisture levels this year owing to vagaries of the weather. Punjab, another paddy powerhouse, has also approached the Centre for similar relaxations on moisture.
News from States
CM Pramod Sawant Enforces NSA to Tackle Migrant-Linked Offences
Goa CM Pramod Sawant justified implementing the National Security Act (NSA) for three months, citing a rise in gunfire, robberies, and crimes involving migrants. Referring to incidents in Margao and Pernem, he urged landlords to ensure police and tenant verification before renting rooms. Sawant assured that the police have full authority to maintain public safety and that law-abiding Goans need not worry.
Exporting Workers
Russia eyes Indian workers, deal likely during Putin trip
India and Russia are set to sign a mobility pact soon. This agreement will protect Indian workers in Russia. Russia seeks more Indian workers to address its declining population. Indians are finding jobs in construction and textiles. Demand is growing for skilled workers in machinery and electronics. This pact aims to increase Indian employment in Russia in the coming years.
Skilling
A circular loop: Rural-urban-rural migration in a north Karnataka district
The government’s skill development schemes encouraged youth in Raichur to migrate to cities for ‘better jobs’, but they only found low-paid work in urban areas and have been returning to their villages. “I went there to attend a sales management training and hoped I’d acquire skills to get a job. After the training, I got placed in the branch of a supermarket chain, where I wasn’t doing billing or computer-related work, but cleaning and working in the store room. It was very strenuous, the monthly pay was only 8,000-10,000 rupees, and I couldn’t find an affordable room. So, I decided to leave the job and return to my village,” said Mithunraj (name changed), a youth from Medikinhal village in northern Karnataka’s Raichur district.
Tripura CM Manik Saha distributes skill development toolkits for Bru migrants, stresses self-respect and dignity
As many as 35,000 candidates are training with a special focus on renewable energy, IT services, AI, etc., under the Tripura Skill and Entrepreneurship Policy 2024, Chief Minister Manik Saha said.
Livelihoods
Eco India: How Maharashtra's forestry models are helping make conservation profitable for its locals
VIDEO: In Maharashtra’s Satara district, a social forestry project has improved tree cover across more than 850 acres over the last decade, largely by engaging locals.
AI and Jobs
IIT placement rates slide, pays shrink as vaunted colleges reconcile with AI, changing job market
The IITs are yet to release a consolidated report of their 2024-25 placement season. The seven IITs established between 1951 and 2001 — Kharagpur, Bombay, Madras, Kanpur, Delhi, Guwahati, and Roorkee — are classified as first generation IITs, and were the worst affected in terms of placement rates , seeing a dip of over 11 percentage points — from just above 90% in 2021-22 to 79% in 2023-24 — though their weighted average salaries (average pay adjusted for the number of students placed) saw only a marginal dip of ₹0.2 lakh, from ₹25.5 LPA to ₹25.3 LPA .
Analysis
Bihar’s Opposition parties are looking at migration the wrong way
Opposition parties in Bihar criticize migration as distressed, highlighting poverty and suffering. The author contends this view is outdated, arguing migration often empowers individuals, provides vital livelihood, economic relief, and dignity, improving socio-economic status. This negative political narrative misreads public sentiment and could backfire in the 2025 elections.
Research
Understanding migration through public datasets
Understanding India’s migration patterns is critical but are there any systematic ways to measure and record the counts, reasons, destinations, and timing of movement to understand migration patterns? And why should citizens and governments care?
Reports
‘Workers losing fingers daily was shocking’
IF you are feeling pleased about the car you drive, spare a thought for the workers who put it together for you. Some of them might have lost their fingers in the process. Every year, a report titled Crushed, brought out by Safe In India, a non-profit, uncovers a large number of accidents taking place on shopfloors in the Indian automobile sector. The dangerous power press, used to shape metal parts, is mostly the cause of the injuries. Workers, many of them young, end up maimed for life. They are inadequately compensated and invariably left to fend for themselves. Labyrinthine paperwork and official procedures are unleashed on them.
CRUSHED 2025--A Safe in India Foundation Report
For the seventh year, our CRUSHED report presents uncomfortable evidence: thousands of workers in your supply chains still lose their fingers, hands, livelihoods, and dignity, to preventable accidents. The Government of India’s Economic Survey 2024–25 endorses what we have long advocated: unsafe workplaces are not just a human tragedy but a drag on productivity and India’s global competitiveness. These injuries, a sign of unprofessional manufacturing, contribute to India’s low labour productivity (ranked 130th) and MSME productivity (half of emerging market average). The Survey calls for professionalizing MSMEs and improving OSH as key to quality, resilience, and growth.
Exploited Workers
India Repatriates 270 Citizens Who Fled Myanmar Cyber Scam Hub | Vantage With Palki Sharma
VIDEO: Hundreds of Indian nationals have been repatriated after escaping a cyber scam compound in Myanmar’s Myawaddy region. The KK Park complex was raided by Myanmar’s military in October, leading to over 2,000 arrests and the seizure of Starlink terminals. Around 500 Indians fled to Thailand, and 270 were flown back to India on special Indian Air Force flights. Officials say the returnees will be questioned to trace recruitment networks. In 2023, the UN estimated that over 100,000 people are trapped in similar scam centres in Myanmar and another 100,000 in Cambodia, where criminal groups operate large-scale online fraud schemes.
Sold for $5,000, nails pulled out—Indians’ accounts of being trapped in Myanmar’s cyber scam hubs
New Delhi: Twenty-four-year-old Pradeep Vijay from Maharashtra believed he had landed a data entry job in Myanmar. Instead, he found himself trapped in a shady compound in Myawaddy, under the unrelenting watch of the Border Guard Forces, a pro-military militia, and forced to run fake crypto schemes for three years targetting Indian expatriates. Between January 2022 and May 2024, at least 29,466 Indians travelled to Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar & Vietnam on tourist visas & didn’t return, ThePrint has learnt.