📰 ‘Track social media to check pangolin poaching’
Probe revealed accused trading online by forming WhatsApp groups: Odisha Forest Dept.
•The Odisha Forest department has stressed the need for stricter monitoring of social media platforms to check pangolin poaching and trading.
•During past few years, instances of pangolin poaching have been reported at regular intervals from different parts of Odisha.
•The Athagarh Forest Division in Odisha’s Cuttack district had tasted success in pinning down the active gang of pangolin smugglers during November 2019 and subsequently arrested more than 30 members of the organised network from different parts of the State.
•“Investigations revealed that the accused were trading pangolin and scales online by forming WhatsApp groups in which videos and photos were shared with potential customers, often based outside the country, and details communicated in codes to conceal the transactions,” said Sasmita Lenka, former Divisional Forest Officer of Athagarh, who played a key role in detection of poachers’ networks.
•Ms. Lenka said “trafficking of live pangolin and its scales is a highly lucrative business for organised mafia, who exploit poor and vulnerable forest dwelling communities for their criminal interests.”
•She said this was pushing the endangered species into extinction and simultaneously placing these communities at high risk.
•“While personal contacts and networks of grassroots markets run by middlemen used to facilitate wildlife trade, the cyber revolution has enabled widespread access to digital platforms since the 2000s, and consequently a sizeable chunk of wildlife trade started taking place through social media,” said the senior forest officer.
Videos and pictures
•Athagarh forest personnel found that it was fairly easy to find videos and pictures of threatened and protected species of animals online.
•Ms. Lenka blamed chronic field-level manpower shortage for poaching incidents.
School managements told to ensure students are not burdened with carrying unnecessary material
•The Directorate of Education has issued a circular asking schools to follow the new ‘School Bag Policy, 2020’ released by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT).
•According to the circular, schoolteachers should inform the students in advance about the books and notebooks to be brought to school on a particular day and frequently check their bags to ensure that they are not carrying unnecessary material. The weight of the school bags, as per the policy, should be 1.6 to 2.2 kg for students of Classes I and II, 1.7 to 2.5 kg for Classes III, IV and V, 2 to 3 kg for Classes VI and VII, 2.5 to 4 kg for Class VIII, 2.5 to 4.5 kg for Classes IX and X and 3.5 to 5 kg for Classes XI and XII.
•It adds that the teachers should take the responsibility of checking the weight of school bags of the students every three months on a day selected for the whole class and any information about heavy bags should be communicated to the parents.
Drinking water facility
•To reduce the weight of the school bag, the circular says that it is the duty and the responsibility of the school management to provide quality potable water in sufficient quantity to all the students in the school so that they do not need to carry water bottles from their homes.
•“Heavy school bags are a serious threat to the health and well-being of students. The heavy school bag has severe/adverse physical effects on growing children which can cause damage to their vertebral column and knees,” the circular reads.
•“Heads of Schools under the Directorate of Education are hereby directed to adhere to the revised guidelines to reduce the weight of school bags for students in Primary, Secondary and Senior Secondary Schools,” the notice says.
•It adds that files and thin/light exercise books should be preferred to thick/heavy ones.
📰 Bird flu outbreak in 2 districts of Kerala
State on high alert after H5N8 subtype of Influenza A virus reported in ducks
•THIRUVANANTHAPURAM The State was placed on high alert on Monday after an outbreak of bird flu was confirmed in Kottayam and Alappuzha districts. The Animal Husbandry Department has taken adequate steps to contain the spread of infection, Animal Husbandry Minister K. Raju said.
•The presence of the H5N8 subtype of the Influenza A virus was reported in ducks in Thalavadi, Thakazhy, Pallipad and Karuvatta in Alappuzha district and Neendoor in Kottayam district.
•Five of eight samples airlifted to the National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases (NIHSAD), Bhopal, tested positive for the bird flu virus, the Minister said, adding that the infection has not been reported in human beings so far.
•Culling of ducks in the infected regions will be undertaken as per Central government guidelines. Disease surveillance and disinfection will be carried out in a time-bound manner, Mr. Raju said.
In humans
•While it can prove lethal for birds, the H5N8 strain of avian influenza has a lower likelihood of spreading to humans compared to H5N1, officials of the State Institute for Animal Diseases (SIAD) at Palode said. Besides, the precautions already in place for combating the COVID-19 pandemic, including physical distancing and wearing of masks, further reduce the threat to humans, an SIAD official said.
•While the source of infection is yet to be pinpointed, the role of migratory birds in passing on the virus is suspected. Following the confirmation of the outbreak from the NIHSAD, the Animal Husbandry Department has tightened vigil in all districts, particularly Alappuzha, Kottayam and Pathanamthitta.
•In recent years, bird flu (H5N1 strain) outbreaks were reported in Kerala in 2014 and 2020. An H5N8 outbreak was reported in Kuttanad in Alappuzha, in 2016.
•A high-level meeting was convened at the Animal Husbandry Directorate on Monday to assess the situation. Control rooms were opened at the District Veterinary Centres in Alappuzha and Kottayam. The Joint Director (Poultry) was appointed State-level nodal officer for tackling the emergency. The Additional Director (Planning) will tour the districts to monitor the prevention measures.
•The Animal Husbandry Department will chart out the future course of action in collaboration with the Departments of Revenue, Health, Local Self-Government, Police and Forest. A meeting of senior officials at the State and district levels has been scheduled on Tuesday to review the measures.
📰 Maximum Governor: On Governor's role
Governors should not exceed constitutional duties to serve as agents of the Centre
•The misuse of the Governor’s office to undermine duly elected State governments is a particularly mischievous disruption of federalism. Kerala Governor Arif Mohammad Khan’s frequent use of his powerful oratory to defend the Centre and question the State on sensitive topics makes him partisan and undermines democratic processes. His refusal to convene a special session of the Kerala Assembly on December 23, as initially requested by the government, yet again proved this. He questioned the urgency of the special session, and thought the Assembly lacked “the jurisdiction to offer a solution” to the farmers’ protest, an issue which the Assembly wanted to discuss. This is an encroachment upon the powers of the legislature and the elected government and an abuse of his authority as a nominal head under the Constitution. His conduct was comparable to that of his counterpart in Rajasthan who refused to convene a session of the Assembly in July last year as demanded by the Chief Minister. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan wrote to Mr. Khan stating the Governor had no discretionary powers in the matter and that his actions were unconstitutional. This position was supported by the Opposition too. Thankfully, the government made an amended request for convening the session and the Governor accepted it. Mr. Khan had earlier questioned a resolution passed by the Kerala Assembly on the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, besides making public statements supporting the CAA and the farm laws. To assume that an Assembly is acting unconstitutionally if it disagrees with Parliament is disingenuous. By lending himself and his office to such partisan conflicts, Mr. Khan is also besmirching his personal reputation as a fiercely fair-minded public figure. Such conduct by a Governor can weaken federalism.
•In the event, the controversy overshadowed the one-day session on December 31, which sought the repeal of the central laws that are at the heart of the ongoing farmer agitation. A resolution passed with the support of the ruling LDF and the opposition UDF, and unopposed by the lone BJP member, raised procedural and substantive questions related to these laws. The resolution pointed out that agriculture was a State subject and “as a matter that seriously affects the States, the Bills should have been discussed in a meeting of the inter-State council”. The Bills were passed in haste without even referring them to the Standing Committee of the Parliament, which the Assembly termed “a serious matter.” It has become habitual for the Centre to overlook regional concerns, and the making of the farm laws without consulting States was in line with this trend. The Council of States (Rajya Sabha) has been systematically undermined by arbitrarily labelling bills as money bills. The use of central agencies to browbeat Opposition-ruled States is yet another strain on federalism.
📰 A nod to recognising the value of housework
This is an agenda all political parties, and not just the Makkal Needhi Maiam, could incorporate in their manifestos
•In the context of the forthcoming State Assembly election in Tamil Nadu, the Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM), led by veteran actor Kamal Haasan, has made an eye-catching election promise that is evidently targeted at a large constituency of voters — women who are full-time homemakers. The party has promised to recognise housework as a salaried profession by paying homemakers ‘hitherto unrecognized and unmonetized’ for their work at home.
•A recent political entrant in the electoral fray, the MNM’s promise to directly pay women a monthly amount may be viewed as a strategy to grab attention in an over-crowded, highly competitive electoral landscape. Nonetheless, the promise bears close examination as it flags off an important issue and one that has had an interesting, if chequered significance in the history of women’s movements.
Origins of the demand
•The demand for ‘wages for housework’ arose in the context of struggle and consciousness-raising associated with the Second Wave of the women’s movement in North America and Europe. Alongside other demands for social and political equality, women’s rights campaigners made visible and also politicised women’s everyday experience of housework and child care in the ‘private’ realm of the household. In doing this, they challenged the assumption that a ‘natural’ affinity for housework was rooted in the essential nature of women who were performing a ‘labour of love’. For leading women’s rights activists of the 1960s and 1970s, it was important to bust the myth that women’s work at home was a personal service with no links to capitalist production. In a concrete sense, this meant linking the exploitation of the worker in the factory to women’s work at home.
•As Mariarosa Dalla Costa and Selma James wrote in their seminal piece in 1972 (https://bit.ly/2X6cU3B), the woman working at home produced ‘the living human being — the labourer himself.’ From the nine-month period of gestation in the womb, women’s daily chores of cooking, cleaning, washing, ironing clothes, preparing lunch boxes and so on produced the labour power that was daily consumed in the shop-floor or the assembly line and had to be reproduced afresh every day. By providing free services in the home,women made possible the survival of working-class households at subsistence-level wages, with obvious benefits for industry and capital.
•Despite the links between the ‘housewife’ and the factory worker, the unwaged status of the former accounted for crucial differences between them. As feminist scholar and writer Silvia Federici wrote (in 1975), in “Wages against housework”, it was possible for wage-earners to bargain around the terms of their paid work and the quantity of the wage. ‘But exploited as you might be, you are not that work’, she pointed out (https://bit.ly/38UShNm). Housework, on the other hand, had come to define the very nature of a woman. This disallowed women from seeing it as ‘real work’ or as a social contract. And,therefore, the women who sought to negotiate housework with their partners were seen as ‘nagging b******’ and not as workers in struggle’. For the advocates of ‘wages for housework’, the wage that the state ought to pay women would make them autonomous of the men on whom they were dependent. More fundamentally, the very demand for a wage was a repudiation of housework as an expression of women’s nature. It was a revolt against the assigned social role of women. Therein lay the radical nature of the demand for wages, not in the money itself.
An unresolved issue
•There was disagreement among the women ideologues of the Second Wave on what payment of a wage would actually mean for women. The sociologist, Ann Oakley, who studied the history of housework in her path-breaking books published in the 1970s, was among those who believed that ‘wages for housework’ would only imprison women further within the household, increase their social isolation and dissuade men from sharing housework.
•Others too argued that the goal of the women’s movement must be, to not ask for wages, but to free women from the daily drudgery of routine domestic chores and enable them to participate fully in all spheres of social life, including paid employment outside the household. The debate around monetary remuneration for housework remained unresolved within the women’s movement, even as the tools to measure the value that women’s unpaid work adds to national economies have grown more sophisticated.
•However, the underlying issue, which is the disproportionate share of women’s responsibility for the work that sustains human life and reproduces labour power, remains as pressing as ever. A report published by the International Labour Organization in 2018 (https://bit.ly/2Xbiim1) shows that, globally, women perform 76.2% of total hours of unpaid care work, more than three times as much as men. In Asia and the Pacific, this figure rises to 80%.
Defining this constituency
•To return to the MNM’s election promise, would the payment of a wage by the state to homemakers redress the situation? This raises the tricky question of how this constituency is to be defined. Is it to be only women who are full-time homemakers? Many women earning a wage outside the home also perform the bulk of household work. On what ground are they to be excluded? What about women workers who earn an income from home by stitching clothes, selling cooked meals or are engaged in petty trade? They often self-identify as ‘housewives’ given the meagre and variable wages they earn and periods of seasonal unemployment.
•These are issues that cannot be easily resolved. It would be better to strengthen the demand for a universal basic income for income-poor households and make sure that the cash transfer to the family reaches women directly, whether or not they combine household work with paid work.
Struggle for legislation
•However, the demand that the state recognise housework is significant and its radical core must not be missed, as the historical experience of the women’s movement shows us. In this context, it is worth mentioning that an important campaign on the question of household labour has been taking place in India. This is the ongoing struggle for national legislation for domestic workers. These are predominantly women who perform ‘women’s work’ but in other people’s homes. They are, therefore, uniquely positioned to make this work visible and demand that its conditions be regulated, minimum wages guaranteed, and the workers’ status and rights protected.
•The question of how to measure and account for the value of housework has been seriously addressed by women domestic workers and their trade unions in Tamil Nadu and elsewhere. Their demands include an hourly minimum wage, a weekly day-off, an annual bonus and the protection of their bodily autonomy in the workspace.
•This is an agenda that all parties, and not just the MNM, could incorporate in their election manifestos, should they take seriously the mandate of ‘recognizing and monetizing’ housework. If domestic workers emerge as a strong force that succeeds in asserting the dignity of housework and making it a visible and valued form of labour, this can only be a good thing for all women performing housework in the long run.
📰 Hasty approval, no transparency
India has squandered an opportunity to build trust in COVID-19 vaccines
•The two COVID-19 vaccines — Covishield and Covaxin — tested and manufactured in India by the Pune-based Serum Institute and Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech, respectively, could have played a vital role in ending the pandemic in the country. However, the regulator’s haste and lack of transparency in approving the vaccines for “restricted” use do not inspire confidence. The regulator did not wait for sufficient safety and efficacy data to be collected and did not share information about the clinical trials before granting approval.
•Transparency is vital for gaining people’s trust so that they don’t hesitate to take the vaccine. However, the conduct of the Indian regulator in no way helps in building trust in vaccines. If there is already some degree of apprehension about the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, given the rushed manner in which the trials have been conducted, the opaque nature of the approval process has done little to mitigate such concerns.
•Contrast this with the manner in which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.K. regulator approved COVID-19 vaccines. The FDA had a live telecast of the advisory committee’s examination of Pfizer’s and Moderna’s vaccine data before granting emergency use authorisation (EUA). It also made the detailed briefing document of the clinical trial of each vaccine and its assessment public. The U.K. regulator also made the assessment of the two vaccines — by Pfizer and AstraZeneca — publicly available.
No efficacy data
•The phase-2/3 trial of Covishield was carried out on 1,600 participants and was intended to study only safety and immunogenicity, as the details available on the clinical trial registry indicate. According to the informed consent document made available to trial participants, safety was to be tested on 1,200 participants and immunogenicity on 400 individuals. The trial did not study the efficacy of the vaccine. Approving Covishield based on safety and immunogenicity data from the trial in India and efficacy data from the U.K. might be sufficient for emergency use. But it is imperative that Serum Institute collects efficacy data from the Indian trial before seeking full approval.
•Though no published data are available, the U.K. regulator has found some evidence that efficacy improves when the second dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine is delayed. Accordingly, it has recommended that the second dose be administered 4-12 weeks after the first. Serum Institute has wasted an opportunity to test the protection offered by the first dose and determine the efficacy of a delayed second dose and the best time to administer it. It is now for the government to decide, without evidence, the timing of the second dose.
•In the case of Covaxin, the phase-3 trial began in mid-November 2020. Since the second dose is administered 28 days after the first, the median follow-up after the second dose would have been just a few days and that too from a very small number of participants. In short, the approval for “restricted” use granted to Covaxin was not based on any efficacy data. What level of protection is offered by the vaccine and whether it protects against severe disease and prevents infection and transmission are all not known.
•By giving approval to Covaxin without data on its efficacy, the Indian regulator has joined the ranks of China and Russia. When the Chinese regulator approved CanSino Biologics’s vaccine that had not undergone a phase-3 trial, it at least limited its use for the military. In mid-November, three months after approval, Russia’s claim of 92% efficacy for Sputnik V was based on a review of just 20 COVID-19 cases.
•Also, the assertion that Covaxin will protect people against the new variant of the virus is not backed by evidence. No efficacy data against any SARS-CoV-2 virus strain are currently available.
•What makes the approval for Covaxin all the more galling is the explicit permission to administer the vaccine in a “clinical trial mode”. This is nothing but a large-scale phase-3 clinical trial carried out on people belonging to the four priority groups consenting to receive the vaccine. The following remain unknown: how informed the informed consent will be, who is going to inform the recipients about the intricacies of the “trial”, how well the “participants” are going to be monitored, and how the efficacy will be determined in the absence of a control arm.
•Nine global vaccine manufacturers issued a joint pledge last September that they would not seek premature approval from regulatory authorities. Bharat Biotech’s haste in seeking approval stands in contrast. The Indian regulator had earlier stipulated that at least 50% efficacy is necessary to grant EUA.
•Compare this with the manner in which the FDA upheld the sanctity of the approval process. Despite pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to make vaccines available before election day, the FDA made it clear that it would require phase-3 data with a “median follow-up duration of at least two months after completion of the full vaccination regimen to assess a vaccine’s benefit-risk profile”. The FDA also said EUA would be granted only “based on data from a phase-3 trial that demonstrates the vaccine’s safety and efficacy in a clear and compelling manner”.
A lost opportunity
•While daily fresh cases and deaths have been increasing sharply in the U.S., the new variant that has been spreading rapidly in the U.K. has been causing havoc. In India, on the other hand, the number of daily fresh cases and deaths has been steadily dropping since mid-September. The companies and the regulator should therefore have taken advantage of the situation here to ensure that EUA is backed by data.
•Not only has India squandered a great opportunity to collect robust data and build trust in COVID-19 vaccines but has also set the stage to potentially reverse decades of hard work in building vaccine confidence. In 2019, a single mistake in preparing the measles, mumps, and rubella injection that led to the deaths of two infants in Samoa led to a sharp drop in vaccine uptake and a measles outbreak there.
•In India, a December 2018 study in 121 districts that have higher rates of unimmunised children found that 24% of children did not get vaccinated due to apprehension about adverse effects. If there is vaccine hesitancy among the four high-risk groups which will get vaccinated on priority, the companies and the regulator have themselves to blame.
📰 Embracing energy efficiency
Doing so can bring down household energy bills and reduce the financial stress of discoms
•The Power Minister, R.K. Singh, recently announced the Electricity (Rights of Consumers) Rules, 2020. The rules lay down uniform performance standards for power distribution companies (discoms) and make them liable to compensate consumers in case of violations. The well-intentioned rules come at a time when Indian discoms are struggling to manage their finances. This is partly linked to drop in payment rates, as consumers are struggling to pay their bills amid rising consumption and tight finances. The Indian government has sanctioned liquidity relief to help discoms tide over this crisis, but these are just short-term fixes.
•India’s residential electricity consumption is expected to at least double by 2030. As households buy more electric appliances to satisfy their domestic needs, concerns about the ability of discoms to provide reliable supply at affordable rates will also rise. Embracing energy efficiency can be a win-win solution as this can bring down household energy bills and reduce discoms’ financial stress.
Tryst with energy efficiency
•In recent years, India has seen significant adoption of energy-efficient appliances, especially those covered under the mandatory labelling programme, according to the India Residential Energy Survey conducted by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water and the Initiative for Sustainable Energy Policy. The survey, covering nearly 15,000 households across 21 States, found that more than 75% of air-conditioners and 60% of refrigerators used in Indian homes were star-labelled. Further, nearly 90% of Indian homes used LED lamps or tubes.
•However, there has been limited uptake of energy-efficient ceiling fans and televisions. While 90% of homes use fans, only 3% have efficient fans. Similarly, 60% of our television stock comprises the big old energy-guzzling CRT (cathode ray tube) models. Desert coolers, used by 15% homes, are not even covered under the labelling programme. Significant efficiency gains are also possible for other appliances like water pumps and induction cook stoves.
The way forward
•First, we need to improve the availability and affordability of energy-efficient appliances. For instance, despite a voluntary labelling scheme since 2009, less than 5% of ceiling fans produced in India are star-rated. While the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) plans to bring ceiling fans under mandatory labelling from 2022, the high upfront cost will be another barrier. At present, the most efficient fans cost more than double the price of conventional models. We need innovative business models that can attract manufacturers to produce efficient technology at scale and bring it within purchasing capacity.
•Second, India needs a nationwide consumer awareness campaign on energy efficiency. Only a fourth of Indian households are currently aware of BEE’s star labels. While awareness levels are high among residents of metros and tier-1 cities, the majority in small towns and rural areas remain unaware. To bridge this divide, we need a decentralised and consumer-centric engagement strategy. State governments, discoms and retailers need to be at the forefront of our renewed efforts to create mass awareness about energy efficiency.
•Finally, we need to monitor supply quality and changing consumption pattern on a real-time basis. As discoms in India deploy smart meters, these must be used to measure actual savings and demonstrate the benefits of energy-efficient devices to build consumer confidence. The smart metering network would also be crucial to enforce consumer rights rules.
•India has tasted success in recent years by embracing energy efficiency. The government’s UJALA scheme transformed the market for LED bulbs, while also helping India reduce its annual carbon emissions by nearly 82 million tonnes. A similar focus towards other energy-efficient appliances would allow India to ensure 24x7 power for all.
📰 Quality gigs, a solution to urban unemployment
With no urban equivalent to the NREGA as yet, there must be a focus on supporting new forms of employment
•With the Indian economy gradually finding its feet after a historic contraction of negative 23.9% in the April-June quarter, economic commentators have busied themselves with debating the need for fiscal expansion and the viability of a “V-shaped recovery”. These debates, however, have shifted focus away from the employment question, considered resolved after a sharp rally following the collapse in employment numbers in April. More recent data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (https://bit.ly/3hEnl7Z), however, point to a gradual slowdown in employment recovery from the month of July, with the latest numbers pointing to a sharp rise in the national unemployment rate from 6.51% in November to 9.06% for the month of December.
NREGA outlay
•For labour flocking back to rural India, employment support came in the form of an increased outlay for the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGA), which witnessed a 243% increase in person workdays. This increased dependency on NREGA, has seen the Rural Development Ministry spend nearly 90% of its increased ₹86,4000 crore allocation by the month of November, while still being unable to fulfil demands for nearly 13% of the 75 million households that demanded work.
•In several Indian cities however, shuttered businesses have meant that millions of workers have either had to leave or have had to take up new forms of work, with some finding the burgeoning gig economy to be their only source of employment. It is here that the Fairwork Foundation’s annual review of platform labour gains prominence.
The metrics used
•The report (https://bit.ly/2X5nZSu) evaluates the well-being of gig workers on 11 digital platforms and does so by evaluating them on five metrics of Fair Pay, Fair Conditions, Fair Contracts, Fair Management and Fair Representation. In its findings however, only two firms (Urban Company and Flipkart) score greater than five (out of a maximum of 10) while seven score only 2 or less. Most concerning perhaps, is the fact that the bottom of the rankings are rounded off by India’s four largest platform giants, namely, Uber, Ola, Swiggy and Zomato.
•With no urban equivalent to the NREGA on the horizon, there must be an increased impetus on evaluating, regulating and supporting new forms of employment that may currently be serving as an informal safety net for those desperately in search of work.
•The first and most critical task at hand remains evaluation. Our current understanding of gig work and workers remains constrained to the limited disclosures made by the platforms themselves. Furthermore, with very few independent studies evaluating the scale and impact of these platforms, most regulators continue to remain in the dark on basic questions surrounding platform labour. As of now there exists no authoritative estimate on the total number of gig workers in India, though the centralised nature of the platforms, and the larger platform labour market should make the collating of this data relatively straightforward for the Labour Ministry.
Issue of regulation
•The next step is significantly more sensitive and involves regulation. The reason for the sensitivity primarily revolves around the varied nature of gig work. While some workers use these platforms as a “side hustle”, for others it continues to serve as a primary source of employment. This dynamic is further complicated by the risk of a one-size-fits-all regulatory strategy unintentionally hurting the similar, yet distinct, market for highly skilled (and highly paid) freelancers, that continues its rapid growth due to pandemic related full-time staff layoffs.
•Perhaps a more viable strategy then would involve conditional government partnerships with platforms under some of its flagship schemes. Here, the successful pilot (https://bit.ly/3pMNggC) of Swiggy’s Street Food Vendors programme under the PM SVANidhi, or PM Street Vendor’s Atma Nirbhar Nidhi scheme, may prove to be an illustrative example. While Swiggy has announced the onboarding of 36,000 street food vendors onto the platform under the scheme this month, it has also looked to ensure that each vendor is registered and certified by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India. The simultaneous creation of jobs, alongside the voluntary adoption of quality standards is an example of a mutually beneficial partnership between the state and a platform that creates jobs while incentivising greater levels of compliance.
Urban employment
•Similar collaborations on urban employment, that require labour platforms to comply with disclosure norms and worker compensation standards to access government support, could be one way for the government to kill two birds with one stone. Current proposals for an Urban Employment Guarantee peg daily worker wages at approximately ₹300 (https://bit.ly/2Mt1moR), at a cost of ₹1-lakh crore to the exchequer. Collaborating with platforms to employ workers, would not only bring down costs significantly (for both the state and their partners) but it would also create an environment where firms would be more likely to cooperate with the state, as opposed to adopting an antagonistic position in what could prove to be a long-winded legal battle.
Symbiotic ties
•As the new year rolls in, and India looks to convince the world that it has turned the corner on its economic woes, it must look to step outside the box to tackle the challenge of urban unemployment. Limited fiscal space and a growing need to fuel the country’s consumption base, must push the government to build symbiotic relationships with new partners. With Industry 4.0 platforms absorbing increasing numbers of the urban workforce, evaluation, collaboration, and regulation must be the government mantra. As the pandemic forces India to define its own understanding of the future of work, it falls upon the state to ensure that this future is defined not only by the quantity of jobs it creates but also by the quality of livelihoods they provide for .
