Economy

As somebody who spent more than a decade in Delhi, the current atmosphere of violence in India’s capital city deeply saddens me. But I am not surprised. Maybe because I come from a part of India—its troubled Northeast periphery—where such violence was a part of life.

When Prime Minster Narendra Modi came back to power, he had many things going for him: a renewed mandate, an absolute majority in parliament, a prostrate opposition, and a level of personal popularity with the electorate that dwarfed any other leader.

But, at the same time, his new government was confronting three major challenges. The first was a tepid economy whose weaknesses were threatening all other goals. The second was a more uncertain international environment, stemming from an unpredictable and polarized United States and a resurgent China.

Care work has been the focus of policy debates after the International Labour Organization (ILO) published a report titled “Care Work and Care Jobs for the Future of Decent Work” in 2018. The ILO observed that care work involves a range of skills that are often not formally recognized or remunerated, and involving working conditions that are not regulated. Furthermore, care work has an undisputable gender burden with two-thirds of all care workers being women who dedicate themselves to unpaid care work 3.2 times more often than men.

India is, today, a country of about 1.35 billion people. United Nations’ population projections of 2017 say that India is likely to surpass China’s population by 2024 and reach 1.5 billion by 2030, making it the most populous nation on the planet. About two-thirds of Indians are below 35 years age. India’s GDP has been growing at around 7 percent annually for the last two decades, and likely to continue at this pace for at least another decade.