Next time your food shows up hot and on time, think about the person who brought it. Ten-hour shift, two apps running at once just to make the math work, and under Indian law, they're now technically eligible for social security benefits. Technically.
Two families may live in the same forest landscape. Both may have land, family labour, livestock, traditional knowledge and community networks. Yet after the same crop failure, wildlife loss or employment shock, one household manages to recover while the other slips deeper into insecurity. Why?
An average can hide a great deal. According to the 2011 Census, 70.6 per cent of urban households in India had access to piped water [1]; but only around 62 per cent of those used treated piped water [2]; and almost 13 per cent of urban households continued to practice open defecation [3]. Such statistics give a comforting impression of progress at the national level. But they tell us nothing about where such progress is lacking. This policy approach views such deficiencies as shortages in pipes, toilets, and wastewater facilities. In this blog post, I will try to demonstrate why such framing is inadequate. It becomes clear from research that in addition to the physical deficiency, there exists an institutional issue as well. Municipalities differ widely in terms of the things they can do in a legal sense, the amount of resources available for spending, and even in the availability of personnel to manage constructed infrastructure. Such inequality is just inequality of capabilities at the household level.
Women’s entrepreneurship can contribute to employment generation, household income and local economic development. However, women from economically disadvantaged backgrounds may face difficulties in obtaining institutional credit, preparing business plans, acquiring entrepreneurial skills and accessing markets. Limited access to finance can force aspiring entrepreneurs to depend on informal lenders or abandon business ideas before they become viable enterprises.
The Extreme Poverty Eradication Project, also known as the Athidaridrya Nirmarjana Project, was launched by the Government of Kerala in 2021 under the Local Self Government Department (LSGD). Its goal was to find people living in extreme poverty who had fallen outside existing support systems and help them exit that condition within five years (LSGD). Sources provide different launch months, ranging from May to July 2021, so the exact date still needs to be verified with the government order.
The EPFO, established in 1952, is one of the world's largest social security institutions, committed to social security for the financial future of India's workforce. EPFO is a managed provident fund, pension and insurance scheme for workers in the organised sector through its 3 flagship schemes — The EPF scheme (1952), The EPS (1995), the EDLI scheme (1976).
The persistent narrative of youth apathy towards politics has become empirically untenable in contemporary India.