SPRF
ABSTRACT The informal sector employs over 90% of the total Indian workforce (Murthy 2019). The COVID-19-induced lockdowns massively reduced demand for various non-essential goods produced by the informal economy, leading to a decrease in production levels. This significantly contributed to the soaring levels of unemployment in and beyond this sector. Not only did the income […]
ABSTRACT India’s caste system is one of the oldest surviving social hierarchies in the world. The oppressive conditions faced by marginalised caste populations under this system have been well documented. This Issue Brief, the second in SPRF’s series on Inequality in India, examines the current debate surrounding caste-based reservations by looking at the comparative socio-economic […]
ABSTRACT This paper seeks to objectively assess the Government of India’s (GoI) move this year to open the Indian coal mining sector to commercial operations by private industry. The paper delves into why it is unlikely for any additional increase in capacity to occur in the absence of significant interventions from the GoI on behalf […]
ABSTRACT Tribal communities in India are some of the most vulnerable social groups despite having a special status guaranteed by the Indian Constitution. Being at the margins both in the demographic and socio-economic sense, they experience extreme inequalities, especially in their access to healthcare. This Issue Brief attempts to locate these tribal communities in the public […]
ABSTRACT There are approximately 4 million informal waste pickers in India today (Dandapani 2017). These workers engage in recycling activities that are crucial to the health of our ecosystem, as well as help in significantly reducing the waste collection costs for the government. However, they face multiple, overlapping shocks and stresses while trying to […]
ABSTRACT This issue brief, the third in SPRF’s series on India’s Urban Transition focuses on the process of rurbanisation. Rurbanisation has been recommended by many scholars and taken up by successive governments as a way of redistributing the effects of India’s economic growth, which has been conventionally concentrated in and around major urban centres. […]
ABSTRACT This issue brief aims to understand the provisions to formalise the work of informal waste workers in India. It looks at the relevant policy actions and tries to identify existing gaps in the implementation of such actions. It also dwells briefly on the socio-economic precarity that is the primary feature of the work […]
ABSTRACT Custodial torture and deaths are rampant in India, with reports suggesting that an average of 1800 people have died in police custody each year between 2016-2018. Lack of adequate sensitisation or human rights education of police personnel, a severe lacuna of policies and laws to incriminate police officers for committing custodial violence, as […]
ABSTRACT Domestic workers are an indispensable part of the everyday lives of a large segment of India’s urban population. However, in the absence of a national policy to recognise the specific nature of domestic work, their categorisation as ‘workers’ is merely theoretical. This issue brief highlights the isolated nature of domestic work in India, […]
ABSTRACT India, along with witnessing tremendous economic growth rates since the 1980s, has seen a surge in economic inequality as well. India was ranked 2nd in a recent UNDP report on growth in income inequality globally, and 147th out 157 countries in Oxfam’s Report on Commitment to Reducing Inequality. This brief seeks to analyse and […]
ABSTRACT When a ship reaches the end of its life, it is sent to a ship recycling yard to be recycled. Predominantly positioned in South Asian countries, the ship recycling industry is one of the many examples of global waste flows. Having evolved over the years, today the industry provides employment to thousands of people […]
ABSTRACT In a biodiversity-rich and developing country like India, protection, preservation, and promotion of traditional knowledge becomes especially important due to its huge economic potential. This brief delves deeper into issues like bio-piracy and the existing difficulties in protecting traditional knowledge, especially that which is indigenous and collectively owned in nature. It also looks at […]
ABSTRACT Sustainability has become the central concern in agricultural systems in India, as farmers, mostly small and marginal, are grappling with the environmental impact of chemical-intensive farming, declining farm incomes, as well as adverse impacts of climate change on crop yields. This issue brief, the second in SPRF’s series on Indian agriculture, analyses the policy […]
ABSTRACT The treatment of women in Indian societies is riddled with irony. Religion, tradition and mythology, originating from both the mainland as well as the hinterland, liken women to goddesses and believe them to be harbingers of wealth and prosperity. Yet, patriarchal and misogynistic tendencies deeply sewn into our fabric have resulted in India being […]