DOCSLIB.ORG

Employment, Poverty and Rights in India

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Employment, Poverty and Rights in India Employment, Poverty and Rights in India In comparison to other social groups, India’s rural poor – and particularly Adivasis and Dalits – have seen little benefit from the country’s economic growth over the last three decades. Though economists and statisticians are able to model the form and extent of this inequality, their work is rarely concerned with identifying possible causes. Employment, Poverty and Rights in India analyses unemployment in India and explains why the issues of employment and unemployment should be the appropriate prism to understand the status of well-being in India. The author provides a historical analysis of policy interventions on behalf of the colonial and postcolonial state with regard to the alleviation of unemployment and poverty in India and in West Bengal in particular. Arguing that, as long as poverty – either as a concept or as an empirical condition – remains as a technical issue to be managed by governmental technologies, the ‘poor’ will be held responsible for their own fate and the extent of poverty will continue to increase. The book contends that rural unemployment in India is not just an economic issue but a political process that has consistently been shaped by various socio-economic, political and cultural factors since the colonial period. The analysis which depends mainly on ethnography extends to the implementation of the ‘New Rights Agenda’, such as the MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act), at the rural margin. Challenging the dominant approach to poverty, this book will be of interest to scholars working in the fields of South Asian studies, Indian Political Economy, contemporary political theories, poverty studies, neoliberalism, sociology and social anthropology, as well as development studies. Dayabati Roy is a sociologist by training and currently attached with the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, India. She has published articles in various journals including Modern Asian Studies, and she is the author of Rural Politics in India: Political Stratification and Governance in West Bengal (2013). Routledge Contemporary South Asia Series Media as Politics in South Asia Edited by Sahana Udupa and Stephen D. McDowell Death and Dying in India Ageing and End-of-Life Care for the Elderly Suhita Chopra Chatterjee and Jaydeep Sengupta Documentary Film in India An Anthropological History Giulia Battaglia The Rule of Law in Developing Countries The Case of Bangladesh Chowdhury Ishrak Ahmed Siddiky New Perspectives on India and Turkey Connections and Debates Edited by Smita Tewari Jassal and Halil Turan The Judicialization of Politics in Pakistan A Comparative Study of Judicial Restraint and Its Development in India, the US and Pakistan Waris Husain The Appeal of the Philippines Spain, Cultural Representation and Politics José Miguel Díaz Rodríguez Employment, Poverty and Rights in India Dayabati Roy For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Routledge- Contemporary-South-Asia-Series/book-series/RCSA Employment, Poverty and Rights in India Dayabati Roy First published 2018 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2018 Dayabati Roy The right of Dayabati Roy to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis. com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license . Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Roy, Dayabati, author. Title: Employment, poverty and rights in India / Dayabati Roy. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; NewYork, NY : Routledge, 2019. | Series: Routledge contemporary South Asia series ; 125 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018006663 | ISBN 9781138479586 (hardback) | ISBN 9781351065429 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Rural unemployment—India. | Manpower policy, Rural—India. | Poverty—India. | Rural development—India. Classification: LCC HD5710.85.I4 R39 2019 | DDC 331.12/0420954—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018006663 ISBN: 978-1-138-47958-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-351-06542-9 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC Contents Preface and acknowledgements vi List of abbreviations viii 1 Introduction: land, capital and well-being in India 1 2 Right to work! Politics of poverty alleviation policies in India 22 3 Political parties, employment generation policies and governance 47 4 Caste, class and rural employment 80 5 ‘Civil society’, NGOs and rural employment 110 6 Women, gender and employment in rural West Bengal 138 7 Conclusion: employment, capital and the state in rural India 166 Glossary 190 Index 193 Preface and acknowledgements When I was about to finish fieldwork in the year 2008 in rural part of an Indian state, West Bengal, for my doctoral thesis, I was struck by a major question. Why employment is hard to find even in agriculturally prosperous villages of India? This question had been carried over to my future research. I saw Pakhi Murmu, one of my informants, was in terrible shape throughout. Pakhi Murmu was a landless peasant, but one among those 2.8 million fortunate peasants in West Bengal who had managed to obtain 3200 sq cubic of vested, or patta, land meant for cultivation thanks to the redistributive land reforms during the Left Front Regime (1977–2011). He and his wife used this land to cultivate a very small portion of land leasing in from different landholding families, and to work as day-labourer if available on others’ land in and around the village over the years. How can they manage then the whole year to eke out a living? This might be an interesting question, but this question had not motivated me so that I would undertake the current research. The question which motivated me most is: why is rural employment scarce in India? What is the impact of the so-called achievements of green revolution technology (GRT) and the programme of land reforms on the rural poor? After doing a decade-long empirical research into this major question, this book explains why the peasants in India have continually been confronted with predicaments posed by economic uncertainties, unemployment or underemployment, and why even the non-farm work as well as the remittances cannot rescue the jobless villagers. Through navigating the history of policy interventions on behalf of the colonial and postcolonial state in regard to alleviation of unemployment and poverty in India and in West Bengal in particular, it explores how unemployment has been created and shaped complexly at the rural margin. In theoretical terms, this book argues that rural unemployment in India is not just an economic issue but a political process that has consistently been shaped by various socio-economic, political and cultural factors since the British period. It also looks at the way the issues of unemployment have been reconstructed as consequences of the implementation ‘New Rights Agenda’ like the MGNREGA at the rural margin. This book has taken a longer time to write than I planned initially. So it has no doubt that the list of intellectual debts I have accumulated along the way is long. First of all, I express my gratitude to those villagers who speak through the pages of this book in their own voices. They are not just my informants in fieldwork, but Preface and acknowledgements vii the ones who have shaped my understanding about rural employment through their wit and wisdom. I acknowledge the support of the Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation, Denmark. The post doctoral grant I received from this agency enabled me to accomplish this research, to engage in collaborative effort and to interact with many people in this field. I would like to mention the helpful attitude of Prof. Ravinder Kaur as well as other faculty members of the Department of Cross-cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen. Supplementary financial support was obtained from the Eastern Regional Centre (ERC), Indian Council of Social Science Research, which made it possible to write this book. I am immensely grateful, particularly, to Prof. Manabi Majumdar, the Honorary Director, ERC, for her kind gesture in providing this book-writing grant for completing this book. The University of Copenhagen as well as the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, was very supportive in facilitating my research and manuscript preparation respectively. I had intensive interactions with the officials of West Bengal government and a couple of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Their willingness to share their views with me was immensely helpful. Earlier drafts of some chapters have been presented at various conferences and seminars in the universities and institutes of India, Denmark, Sweden and Finland. I thank the organizers of these events as well as the participants who stimulated me with their insightful comments. I thank the Routledge editors for their patience and support, and the anonymous reviewers
Load more

Recommended publications
  • GIPE-012270-Contents.Pdf
    SELECTIONS FROM OFFICIAL LETTERS AND DOCUMENTS RELATING TO THE UfE OF RAJA RAMMOHUN ROY VOL. I EDITED BY lW BAHADUR RAMAPRASAD CHANDA, F.R.A.S.B. L.u Supmnteml.nt of lhe ArchteO!ogit:..S Section. lnd;.n MMe~~m, CUct<lt.t. AND )ATINDRA KUMAR MAJUMDAR, M.A., Ph.D. (LoNDON), Of the Middk Temple, 11uris~er-M-Ltw, ddfJOcote, High Court, C41Cflll4 Sometime Professor of Pb.Josophy. Presidency College, C..Scutt.t. With an Introductory Memoir CALCUTIA ORIENTAL BOOK AGENCY 9> PANCHANAN GHOSE LANE, CALCUTTA Published in 1938 Printed and Published by J. C. Sarkhel, at the Calcutta Oriental Press Ltd., 9, Pancb&nan Ghose Lane, Calcutta. r---~-----~-,- 1 I I I I I l --- ---·~-- ---' -- ____j [By courtesy of Rammohun Centenary Committee] PREFACE By his refor~J~ing activities Raja Rammohun Roy made many enemies among the orthodox Hindus as well as orthodox Christians. Some of his orthodox countrymen, not satis· fied with meeting his arguments with arguments, went to the length of spreading calumnies against him regarding his cha· racter and integrity. These calumnies found their way into the works of som~ of his Indian biographers. Miss S, D. Collet has, however, very ably defended the charact~ of the Raja against these calumniet! in her work, "The Life and Letters of Raja Rammohun Roy." But recently documents in the archives of the Governments of Bengal and India as well as of the Calcutta High Court were laid under contribution to support some of these calumnies. These activities reached their climax when on the eve of the centenary celebration of the death of Raja Rammohun Roy on the 27th September, 1933, short extracts were published from the Bill of Complaint of a auit brought against him in the Supreme Court by his nephew Govindaprasad Roy to prove his alleged iniquities.
    [Show full text]
  • Red Bengal's Rise and Fall
    kheya bag RED BENGAL’S RISE AND FALL he ouster of West Bengal’s Communist government after 34 years in power is no less of a watershed for having been widely predicted. For more than a generation the Party had shaped the culture, economy and society of one of the most Tpopulous provinces in India—91 million strong—and won massive majorities in the state assembly in seven consecutive elections. West Bengal had also provided the bulk of the Communist Party of India– Marxist (cpm) deputies to India’s parliament, the Lok Sabha; in the mid-90s its Chief Minister, Jyoti Basu, had been spoken of as the pos- sible Prime Minister of a centre-left coalition. The cpm’s fall from power also therefore suggests a change in the equation of Indian politics at the national level. But this cannot simply be read as a shift to the right. West Bengal has seen a high degree of popular mobilization against the cpm’s Beijing-style land grabs over the past decade. Though her origins lie in the state’s deeply conservative Congress Party, the challenger Mamata Banerjee based her campaign on an appeal to those dispossessed and alienated by the cpm’s breakneck capitalist-development policies, not least the party’s notoriously brutal treatment of poor peasants at Singur and Nandigram, and was herself accused by the Communists of being soft on the Maoists. The changing of the guard at Writers’ Building, the seat of the state gov- ernment in Calcutta, therefore raises a series of questions. First, why West Bengal? That is, how is it that the cpm succeeded in establishing
    [Show full text]
  • Abdul En Bangladés Aguri En Bangladés Ahmadi En Bangladés
    Ore por los No-Alcanzados Ore por los No-Alcanzados Abdul en Bangladés Aguri en Bangladés País: Bangladés País: Bangladés Etnia: Abdul Etnia: Aguri Población: 27,000 Población: 1,000 Población Mundial: 63,000 Población Mundial: 515,000 Idioma Principal: Bengali Idioma Principal: Bengali Religión Principal: Islam Religión Principal: Hinduismo Estatus: Menos Alcanzado Estatus: Menos Alcanzado Seguidores de Cristo: Pocos, menos del 2% Seguidores de Cristo: Pocos, menos del 2% Biblia: Biblia Biblia: Biblia www.joshuaproject.net www.joshuaproject.net "Proclamen su gloria entre las naciones" Salmos 96:3 "Proclamen su gloria entre las naciones" Salmos 96:3 Ore por los No-Alcanzados Ore por los No-Alcanzados Ahmadi en Bangladés Akhandji en Bangladés País: Bangladés País: Bangladés Etnia: Ahmadi Etnia: Akhandji Población: 2,100 Población: 500 Población Mundial: 167,000 Población Mundial: 500 Idioma Principal: Bengali Idioma Principal: Bengali Religión Principal: Islam Religión Principal: Islam Estatus: Menos Alcanzado Estatus: Menos Alcanzado Seguidores de Cristo: Pocos, menos del 2% Seguidores de Cristo: Pocos, menos del 2% Biblia: Biblia Biblia: Biblia www.joshuaproject.net www.joshuaproject.net "Proclamen su gloria entre las naciones" Salmos 96:3 "Proclamen su gloria entre las naciones" Salmos 96:3 Ore por los No-Alcanzados Ore por los No-Alcanzados Ansari en Bangladés Arakanés en Bangladés País: Bangladés País: Bangladés Etnia: Ansari Etnia: Arakanés Población: 1,241,000 Población: 195,000 Población Mundial: 16,505,000 Población Mundial: 241,000
    [Show full text]
  • 01720Joya Chatterji the Spoil
    This page intentionally left blank The Spoils of Partition The partition of India in 1947 was a seminal event of the twentieth century. Much has been written about the Punjab and the creation of West Pakistan; by contrast, little is known about the partition of Bengal. This remarkable book by an acknowledged expert on the subject assesses partition’s huge social, economic and political consequences. Using previously unexplored sources, the book shows how and why the borders were redrawn, as well as how the creation of new nation states led to unprecedented upheavals, massive shifts in population and wholly unexpected transformations of the political landscape in both Bengal and India. The book also reveals how the spoils of partition, which the Congress in Bengal had expected from the new boundaries, were squan- dered over the twenty years which followed. This is an original and challenging work with findings that change our understanding of parti- tion and its consequences for the history of the sub-continent. JOYA CHATTERJI, until recently Reader in International History at the London School of Economics, is Lecturer in the History of Modern South Asia at Cambridge, Fellow of Trinity College, and Visiting Fellow at the LSE. She is the author of Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition (1994). Cambridge Studies in Indian History and Society 15 Editorial board C. A. BAYLY Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History, University of Cambridge, and Fellow of St Catharine’s College RAJNARAYAN CHANDAVARKAR Late Director of the Centre of South Asian Studies, Reader in the History and Politics of South Asia, and Fellow of Trinity College GORDON JOHNSON President of Wolfson College, and Director, Centre of South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge Cambridge Studies in Indian History and Society publishes monographs on the history and anthropology of modern India.
    [Show full text]
  • DANGER to DEMOCRACY in INDIA Dilip Bose
    59 DANGER TO DEMOCRACY IN INDIA Dilip Bose LEGALLY constituted, constitutionally valid and elected on A a majority basis government has been thrown out of office in an authoritarian manner by a fiat from the Governor of the state (called province under the old British raj) of West Bengal, for the simple crime that this government, called the United Front (UF) government, dared bring about a certain measure of relief and radical measures to ameliorate, at least partially, the almost intoler- able conditions under sky-rocketing prices of foodstuff and other essential commodities, consequent on widespread blackmarketing and corruption. But there is a method by which the ruling Congress party at the Centre is trying to oust not only the Left government in West Bengal but also other non-Congress governments in other states. A government run by the Indian monopolists in collaboration with foreign imperialist interests is resorting to the good old method of purchasing votes of weak and vacillating members of the State Assembly (i.e. the provincial legislature responsible for the govern- ance of the state in general, except of course foreign, defence and such other Central matters) and other Tammany Hall tactics of nepotism, jobbery and corruption. The broadest democratic opinion and all the parties of the Left, inside and outside the Assembly, are fighting back to assert the basic tenets and rules of parliamentary democracy and on its outcome depends the future of democracy and democratic institutions in India. Three state governments have been toppled—Manipur, Haryana and West Bengal—and the difference in approach demonstrates the very quandary of the ruling Congress party at the Centre (i.e.
    [Show full text]
  • Landholding Patterns and Women's Low Work Participation Rates in West
    WIDER Working Paper 2020/34 Hidden from the data Landholding patterns and women’s low work participation rates in West Bengal, India Deepita Chakravarty* March 2020 Abstract: Compared with most other Indian states, women’s reported work participation rates have historically been low in West Bengal. This trend is more prominent in rural areas. Historians have tried to explain this phenomenon in terms of culture and the ideology of domesticity. While persisting cultural prohibitions must have some explanatory merit, it is difficult to understand how social attitudes have remained significantly unchanged over a long period of time in a state where there is considerable economic distress. The objective of this paper is to understand whether economic factors help to sustain cultural traits, and if so, what those economic factors are. More specifically, it tries to see whether the low visibility of working women in published data can also be explained by factors such as landholding patterns. The paper is based on secondary data. Key words: women’s work participation rates, agriculture, landholding patterns, West Bengal, India Acknowledgements: The author is grateful primarily to the late N. Krishnaji for long discussions. The author is also grateful to Ishita Chakravarty for her comments and for the comments of participants in the UNU-WIDER conference ‘Transforming economies—for better jobs’ in Bangkok, Thailand, in September 2019. *Ambedkar University Delhi, Delhi, India; [email protected] This study has been prepared within the UNU-WIDER project Transforming economies—for better jobs. Copyright © UNU-WIDER 2020 Information and requests: [email protected] ISSN 1798-7237 ISBN 978-92-9256-791-0 https://doi.org/10.35188/UNU-WIDER/2020/791-0 Typescript prepared by Merl Storr.
    [Show full text]
  • Changing Political Landscape of West Bengal: a Study of Lok Sabha Elections, 2009 & 2014
    IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science (IOSR-JHSS) Volume 19, Issue 7, Ver. IV (July. 2014), PP 27-37 e-ISSN: 2279-0837, p-ISSN: 2279-0845. www.iosrjournals.org Changing Political Landscape of West Bengal: A Study of Lok Sabha Elections, 2009 & 2014 Dr. Sherap Bhutia Assistant Professor (W.B.E.S.), Post Graduate Department of Geography, Chandernagore Government College, Dist. Hooghly, West Bengal, INDIA Abstract: The Constitution of India provides for a bicameral Parliament consisting of the President and two Houses known as the Council of States (Rajya Sabha) and the House of the People (Lok Sabha). With an over a billion people, the Republic of India is the world's largest democracy. The Lok Sabha elections will be held to 543 constituencies of India, while two seats will be reserved for nominations from the Anglo-Indian community. West Bengal has 42 parliamentary constituencies, out of which, 10 are reserved for candidates belonging to Scheduled Castes, and 2 are reserved for candidates belonging to Scheduled Tribes. The state has held regular elections since independence and is known for its political activism. West Bengal elects 42 representatives to the lower house of the Parliament or Lok Sabha, the third highest in the country. The present exercise examines how far the distribution of votes of a party in one election follows the distribution in the preceding election. The parties with well-defined socio-economic bases show up well in terms of spatial support consistency. The data has been collected from Election Commission of India for two consecutive Lok Sabha election 2009 & 2014 respectively for comparative study of the voting pattern in the state.
    [Show full text]
  • Maoist’ Group
    The Marxist Volume XXI, No. 4 October-December 2005 Anil Biswas ‘Maoism’: An Exercise in Anarchism In recent times, some areas of West Bengal have witnessed activities of the ‘Maoist’ group. The group has tried to draw attention to itself through committing several grisly murders and by triggering some explosions. They are engaged in setting up ‘bases’ in the remote and relatively inaccessible locales of West Bengal that border Bihar-Jharkhand. They seek a foothold in some other districts of the state as well. A section of the corporate media has also been encouraging them, by legitimising the Maoists’ killing of CPI (M) leaders and workers in districts like Bankura, Purulia, and Midnapore west. The CPI (M-L)-People’s War and the Maoist Communist Centre, two groups of the Naxalite persuasion, came together on 21 September 2004 to form a new party, the CPI (Maoist). As with the two erstwhile constituents, the Maoists are active in selected areas of Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, and Jharkhand. Because of the secretive style of their working, their political outlook and activities are largely unknown to the mass of the people. The name of the CPI (Maoist) has been associated with violent acts and spreading terror. Going by their programme and ideological stand, the party is a violent anarchist outfit. Anarchy can cause harm to the democratic struggle and Left movement. The CPI (M) will counter this party politically and ideologically. The CPI (M) formed after a long ideological debate in 1964, and a new Party Programme was adopted. Sectarian and ultra-left adventurist trends arose in the ongoing struggle against revisionism and reformism.
    [Show full text]
  • 2021 Daily Prayer Guide for All People Groups & Unreached People
    2021 Daily Prayer Guide for all People Groups & Unreached People Groups = LR-UPGs = of South Asia Joshua Project data, www.joshuaproject.net (India DPG is separate) AGWM Western edition I give credit & thanks to Create International for permission to use their PG photos. 2021 Daily Prayer Guide for all People Groups & LR-UPGs = Least-Reached-Unreached People Groups of South Asia = this DPG SOUTH ASIA SUMMARY: 873 total People Groups; 733 UPGs The 6 countries of South Asia (India; Bangladesh; Nepal; Sri Lanka; Bhutan; Maldives) has 3,178 UPGs = 42.89% of the world's total UPGs! We must pray and reach them! India: 2,717 total PG; 2,445 UPGs; (India is reported in separate Daily Prayer Guide) Bangladesh: 331 total PG; 299 UPGs; Nepal: 285 total PG; 275 UPG Sri Lanka: 174 total PG; 79 UPGs; Bhutan: 76 total PG; 73 UPGs; Maldives: 7 total PG; 7 UPGs. Downloaded from www.joshuaproject.net in September 2020 LR-UPG definition: 2% or less Evangelical & 5% or less Christian Frontier (FR) definition: 0% to 0.1% Christian Why pray--God loves lost: world UPGs = 7,407; Frontier = 5,042. Color code: green = begin new area; blue = begin new country "Prayer is not the only thing we can can do, but it is the most important thing we can do!" Luke 10:2, Jesus told them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field." Why Should We Pray For Unreached People Groups? * Missions & salvation of all people is God's plan, God's will, God's heart, God's dream, Gen.
    [Show full text]
  • Under the Surface of Sex Trafficking: Socio-Economic and Cultural Perpetrators of Gender-Based Violence in India
    Old Dominion University ODU Digital Commons Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations Graduate Program in International Studies Spring 2016 Under the Surface of Sex Trafficking: Socio-Economic and Cultural Perpetrators of Gender-Based Violence in India Karmen Marie Matusek Old Dominion University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/gpis_etds Part of the International and Area Studies Commons, and the Women's Studies Commons Recommended Citation Matusek, Karmen M.. "Under the Surface of Sex Trafficking: Socio-Economic and Cultural Perpetrators of Gender-Based Violence in India" (2016). Master of Arts (MA), Thesis, International Studies, Old Dominion University, DOI: 10.25777/thtq-9d21 https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/gpis_etds/8 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate Program in International Studies at ODU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ODU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. UNDER THE SURFACE OF SEX TRAFFICKING: SOCIO-ECONOMIC AND CULTURAL PERPETRATORS OF GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE IN INDIA by Karmen Marie Matusek B.A. May 2012, King’s College A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Old Dominion University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS INTERNATIONAL STUDIES OLD DOMINION UNIVERSITY May 2016 Approved by: Jennifer N. Fish (Director) David C. Earnest (Member) Angelica Huizar (Member) ABSTRACT UNDER THE SURFACE OF SEX TRAFFICKING: SOCIO-ECONOMIC AND CULTURAL PERPETRATORS OF GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE IN INDIA Karmen Marie Matusek Old Dominion University, 2016 Director: Dr.
    [Show full text]
  • India: Moving Towards Equal Opportunities for All?
    INDIA: MOVING TOWARDS EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR ALL? i Author: Lucy Dubochet Editorial inputs: Nisha Agrawal, Avinash Kumar, Indrajit Bose Pictures: Arjun Claire © Oxfam India August 2013 This publication is copyright but the text may be used free of charge for the purposes of advocacy, campaigning, education, and research, provided that the source is acknowledged in full. The copyright holder requests that all such use be registered with them for impact assessment purposes. For copying in any other circumstances, permission must be secured. E-mail: [email protected]/ Published by Oxfam India: 4th and 5th Floor, Shriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra, 1, Copernicus Marg, New Delhi 110001 Tel: +91 (0) 11 4653 8000 www.oxfamindia.org Oxfam India Oxfam India, a fully independent Indian organization, is a member of an international confederation of 17 organisations. The Oxfams are rights-based organizations, which fight poverty and injustice by linking grassroots interventions, to local, national, and global polic developments. For further information please write to: [email protected], or visit our website: www.oxfamindia.org. ii 1. Introduction 1 2. Framing the Inequality Debate 2 2.1. The Richer and the Rest 2 2.2. Missing Jobs, Low Wages and the Grip of Discrimination 3 2.3. Education: Equality’s Fledgling Ground 4 2.4. When the Tightrope has no Net: Walking through 7 Health Hazards 2.5. To Have or Not a Toilet around the Corner 8 2.6. About Networks and Chances 9 2.7. Rents and Redistribution 10 3. Have we factored-in the price? 12 References 13 iii iv 1.Introduction In India .
    [Show full text]
  • The Indian Labour Market: an Overview
    ASIAN DECENT WORK 2006 DECADE 20 5 International Labour Organization ILO Asia-Pacific Working Paper Series The Indian Labour Market: An Overview Arup Mitra May 2008 For more information please contact: Phone: +91 11 2460 2101 Fax: +91 11 2460 2111 Email: [email protected] International Labour Office Subregional Office for South Asia India Habitat Centre, Core-4B, 3rd Flr Lodhi Road, New Delhi-110 003, India www.ilo.org/india Subregional Office for South Asia, New Delhi The Indian Labour Market: An Overview Arup Mitra Arup Mitra ([email protected]) is a professor at the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi. He completed his PhD in economics from Delhi School of Economics. He has worked as a Ford Foundation post-doctoral fellow with Professor Edwin S. Mills at Kellogg, Northwestern University, USA. He has received fellowships to pursue research at the Institute of Developing Economies, Japan, and the French Ministry of External Affairs under the Indo-French Exchange Programme to work in Paris. He has worked as a consultant with various international organisations. His research interests include labour and welfare, urban development, industrial growth and productivity, infrastructure development, and gender inequalities. He has published three books on urbanization, informal sector employment, slums, and poverty. Besides, he has to his credit around 60 research papers, which have appeared in various national and international refereed journals and edited volumes. The responsibility for the opinions expressed in this paper rests solely with the author and publication does not constitute an endorsement by the International Labour Office of the opinions expressed in this paper, or of any products, processes or geographical designations mentioned in it.
    [Show full text]