Can the right to work be made real in India?

As economies around the world struggle to recover from the double whammy of a pandemic and a lockdown, unemployment is soaring. In India, the land of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), the promise of jobs and the politics of unemployment have a long history. Can a citizen demand work as a right, and is it the state’s responsibility to provide employment? We discuss the possible policy approaches to the right to work. Guests: Amit Basole, Head, Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University, Bengaluru; Reetika Khera, Associate Professor of Economics at IIT-Delhi. Host: G. Sampath, Social Affairs Editor, The Hindu You can now find The Hindu’s podcasts on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Stitcher. Search for Parley by The Hindu. Write to us with comments and feedback at [email protected]