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

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Search for Parley by The Hindu. Write to us with comments and feedback at [email protected]