Strange to hear the privileged complain about feeling miserable and persecuted while the silence of those grappling with poverty and unemployment goes unnoticed.
https://thewire.in/society/the-choreographed-misery-of-the-powerful This recent unity of misery and insult among India’s privileged and powerful coupled with a media split between two hostile groups to speak for each side is a new phenomena in a surreal time. And it is overtaking most of the available media space leaving little to no informed and informative discussion on the economy and climate change issues.
Several major Bills became laws passed by the House, while 143 opposition MPs stood expelled. They were charged with indulging in unparliamentary acts because they were demanding that the Union Home Minister give a statement on the serious security lapses that resulted in an attack by mavericks inside the parliament. While the entire media ran with this story, a gut wrenching story about the mass burial of 87 Kukis killed in Manipur – with the youngest victim being a month-old baby – was relegated to the inside pages or just ignored.
The evolution of our corporate landscape (and that includes the media also) and work being redefined is a story hardly ever highlighted. Not loyalty but flexibility is the flavour of the season. Recruitment agency (CIEL HR) reports 55% of organizations surveyed across sectors are now engaging gig workers and companies have said that they are going to hire more gig workers who are flexible, scale their workforce as required in an atmosphere where project demands are changing swiftly and workloads keep fluctuating. As a result, fresh formal job creation has dipped to a seven-month low in October according to Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) data while gig freelancers’ earnings have grown by 294% according to gig platform Pick My Work.
by Mrinal Pande
24/12/2023