The COVID-19 lockdown exposed a fundamental weakness in India's labour-market architecture: millions of workers possessed valuable skills and extensive work experience but remained largely invisible to formal systems of employment matching. Uttar Pradesh experienced this challenge at an exceptional scale.
School education in India has long relied on public investment alone to meet the twin challenges of infrastructure gaps and learning-resource shortages, particularly in government schools. Recognising that community and private-sector participation could supplement rather than replace government effort, the Department of School Education & Literacy, Ministry of Education, introduced Vidyanjali, a school volunteer programme designed to connect government and government-aided schools with volunteers, resources, and institutional support.
Kerala's Tribal Resettlement and Development Mission (TRDM) traces its origins to one of the most consequential Adivasi mobilisations in the state's history. In October 2001, thousands of landless Scheduled Tribe (ST) families, organised under the Adivasi Gothra Maha Sabha (AGMS) and led by C.K. Janu and M. Geethanandan, staged a 48 day kudil kettal samaram (hut building protest) outside the Kerala Secretariat. The agitation followed the deaths of over thirty Adivasis from starvation related causes in Wayanad and demanded the distribution of cultivable land to the estimated 52,000 landless tribal families identified by the state.
Goa is India's smallest state by area, spread across roughly 3,700 sq. km along the western coast and divided into North Goa and South Goa districts (with a third district, Kushavati, recently notified in South Goa). Its economy has historically leaned heavily on tourism, mining and remittances, alongside a growing services and IT base, a structure that also leaves it exposed to global shocks, from oil-price swings to shifts in outbound travel demand.
India's direct selling sector, encompassing multi-level marketing (MLM) companies selling wellness, cosmetics, and household products through networks of independent sellers rather than fixed retail outlets, operated for decades without a binding statutory framework. The only regulatory reference point before 2021 was the Model Framework for Guidelines on Direct Selling, issued by the Department of Consumer Affairs on October 26, 2016, following consultations with the Ministry of Finance, the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, and select states including Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, and Kerala.
Uttarakhand's migration crisis presents one of India's most acute demographic challenges. Between 2008 and 2018, approximately 118,981 persons migrated permanently from rural areas of the state, while 383,726 undertook semi-permanent migration for employment (Rural Development and Migration Commission, 2018).
The Employees' State Insurance Act, 1948 insured workers against sickness, maternity, disability and death, but not against losing the job itself. It assumed a worker would hold one job in one factory for a working life, so an insured person could contribute for years, lose that job, and receive nothing from a fund built partly out of their own wages.