Solutions to Change

By Deepthi Mary Mathew* The world has witnessed two major economic crises over the last decade – Sub-prime and Euro zone crises. These periods witnessed a string of discussions and debates aimed at lifting the ailing economies out of the crises. Keynesian economics that lost its glory during the 1970s returned to the centre stage. The central banks in the crisis-hit countries resorted to unconventional measures and started pumping money into the economies. From ‘Quantitative Easing’ to ‘Helicopter Money’, we were introduced to different concepts, while capital was flooded to financial institutions. The result was a sudden movement of capital between the countries in search of maximum returns. Consequently, there was huge instability in the currency markets that witnessed sudden depreciation/appreciation of major currencies. Now, the central banks in these economies are in a major dilemma, as the withdrawal of measures meant to combat the crises could possibly lead to another ...

By Ginu Sunny* Domestic workers comprise a significant part of the unorganised sector and contribute to the national income. Yet, they remain invisible, unregistered in any book and excluded from the labour legislations of our country. The domestic workforce is often considered the grey area of work force that works behind closed doors of private households and is often hard to reach by any conventional policy tools.For instance, this is how the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) in its survey in 2009–10 described the Indian scenario of employment and workforce. “The total employment in the country was 46.5 crore comprising around 2.8 crore in the organised and the remaining 43.7 crore workers in the unorganised sector. Out of these workers in the unorganised sector, there are 24.6 crore workers employed in agricultural sector, about 4.4 crore in construction work and remaining in manufacturing and service.”(C-DAC, 2016) Being a highly feminised sector, the natu...