Informal Labour in India’s Coalfields. By SURAVEE NAYAK Sooner or later, India will have to move away from coal as its primary energy source, given the looming climate-change-induced disasters that await many South Asian countries if immediate steps are not taken. But the transition away from coal is complex and challenging because of the entanglement of coal… Read More Gasping for Air, Bathing in Coal
Srinagar: Sitting in the shade of a cracked wall, Waseem Khan keeps an eye on the Banta soda as he looks at the passersby. The heatwave in Jammu is too much for him to bear. But he shall wait for two more passengers before he can take off to Srinagar in his taxi. “Srinagar! Srinagar!” he shouted, roaming… Read More ‘We are Kashmiris’: Two friends, five non-local laborers, and a silent night
The past few weeks have highlighted more clearly than ever, that the authority and the rule of law within South Africa’s constitutional parliamentary dispensation has gone beyond merely fraying at the edges. Also how confusion can be spread, with potentially dangerous consequences, by the manipulation of news. This manipulation becomes possible because there are too… Read More Terry Bell: South Africa is teetering on the brink of an abyss
First posted August 06, 2013 This paper was researched and written by Rashmi Singh as part of AMAN’s ongoing research on informal labourers. The paper was presented at the Ninth International Conference of the Association for Indian Labour Historians in Delhi. In 2007, following the brutal rape and murder of a fourteen year old school… Read More Rashmi Singh: Migrant Workers in the Kashmir Valley
There’s no dispute that general working-class support for Democrats has fluctuated from election cycle to election cycle. The one constant, though, is that “working-class” is almost always used in the media to suggest white, male workers. The representative Reagan Democrat was, literally, a white autoworker in Michigan. Even when the white prefix is used to… Read More Redefining the American Working Class. Shamira Ibrahim
Train stations across the United Kingdom and the London Underground remained closed or inoperative on Tuesday. Striking railway and transport workers are demanding better salaries in the context of a sharp increase in prices. Inflation in the country currently stands at 9.2 percent, and could reach upwards of 11 percent in the fall when energy and… Read More UK Railway Workers Begin Largest Strike in 30 Years
In July 2021, in a year which presented few reasons to be happy, the garment workers of Sindh province in Pakistan had cause to celebrate. The provincial government had just announced a 40% increase to the minimum wage, raising it from 17,000 to 25,000 rupees (from €84 to €124 at the current exchange rate) per… Read More Pakistan’s wage struggle shows the fragility of progress in the global garment industry
The Indian working class was a proud participant in the anti-imperialist struggle against British rule in India. Whether it was the six-day strike of the working class of Mumbai in 1908; the attempts of the Ghadar Party organised by Punjabi immigrant workers in Canada, who sailed to India in 1914 to overthrow the British; the… Read More Sudha Bhardwaj: Seventy-Five Years Since Independence, Industrial Working Class Still Struggles for Rights
From 2017 to 2021, gas pipeline leaks averaged more than 200 a year. In most cases, leaking gas either ignites at the construction site or passes through a confined space underground and enters nearby premises before exploding. For example, one of the most deadly accidents in recent years in terms of casualties was a gas explosion… Read More Frequent gas accidents threatens safety of Chinese workers
This week, authorities in India’s capital New Delhi released a new plan of action to curb air pollution over the course of summer, as a severe heatwave bakes the city. The plan focuses on reducing pollution from road dust and the burning of waste, which are major contributors of fine particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10) that pose… Read More How air pollution is affecting people in Delhi's slums
After the truth-shower 